The status of RV repair today - opportunity is knocking
Podcast 297 - learning to repair RVs
What’s the status of RV repair today? What’s being done to certify more technicians and is there an opportunity for owners to learn more about their RVs? This week we speak with Curtis Hemmeler from the RV Technical Institute about opportunity, repairs and the status of the RV service.
Tony also shares a campground that’s really different and we also have a recipe with a double twist! Of course we have our RV review of something that might be better than an Airstream.
Other places to hear the podcast
Mentioned on this episode
The RV Technical Institute - https://www.rvti.org/
The RV Industry Association - RVIA - https://www.rvia.org/
Our review of the inTech O-V-R Navigate
Our story about the City of Rocks State Park campground
We enjoyed Silver City and particularly like Tranquillbuzz Coffee Shop
If you’re confused about solar, battery power or just want to upgrade your RV we have found the solutions from ABC Upfitters are both reliable and exceptional.
We have a podcast episode and video where you can learn more here.
Automated transcript of StressLess Camping RV podcast episode 297
Peggy
What is the state of RV repair?
Tony
What's being done to certify more technicians? And is there an opportunity for owners to learn more about their RVs?
Peggy
This week we speak with Curtis Hemler from the RV Technical Institute about opportunity repairs and the status of RV service.
Tony
Yeah. And I've also, I got to go camping this weekend and I have a campground that's really different.
Peggy
Also, he got to try a new recipe that, well, there's kind of a twist.
Tony
Yeah. Almost a double twist. And of course, we have our RV review as well, and it might be better than an Airstream. Ooh.
Peggy
We have this week's podcast, along with the notes and all the stories that go along with this episode, as well as deals, discounts, helpful hint, and more at our home on the web, at stressless camping.com.
Tony
Don't forget to like and share. And thank you for joining us on podcast episode 2 97. I'm Tony,
Peggy
I'm cold. <laugh> <laugh>. Yeah.
Tony
What happened to the weather?
Peggy
I was in Calo, Southern California where it was over 80 every day last week.
Tony
Yeah, that's,
Peggy
And this 60 degree stuff is not my back.
Tony
Yeah. Look who's back. <laugh>. But not only that, but it was even where I was, where I was camping with some friends, it was pretty doggone nice. I mean, it was borderline shorts weather during the day. Ooh. And today it is ba lowen and cold. So Well,
Peggy
Anyway, we are two RV industry veterans who travel part-time
Tony
And a Rockwood Mini light 25 0 6 fk,
Peggy
Looking to share big adventures and help you with great tips, tricks, and discounts.
Tony
Indeed, we have been telling you about our fun and friendly Facebook group, and I know there are a lot of people who are kind of deciding, do I wanna stay on Facebook for a variety of reasons? Sure. I can just say our group has really been exceptionally fun and friendly. I mean, legitimately. Yeah. And very helpful. This week, a few people have posed questions and there weren't the snarkiness or the nastiness or any, they just got answers. Which is pretty cool.
Peggy
Unfortunately, they got correct answers. 'cause that's not always gonna be true everywhere you look <laugh>, you
Tony
Know? Yeah, that's true. We heard some RV industry experts speaking, and I was listening. I'm like, no, that's wrong. That's not
Peggy
Correct, <laugh>.
Tony
So we, we really, really work hard to have legitimate vetted answers when we have questions, whether that's on our home, on the web, or at our Facebook group, wherever it is. I mean, of course we're not perfect. We don't know everything, which is also one of the reasons why we ask. That's right. People who know more than we do.
Peggy
Yeah. So this week we asked somebody who knows more than we do, and that is Curtis Hemler from RV Technical Institute and also RV Industry Association. Yeah.
Tony
He's the senior Vice President of the RVIA. And so, without any further ado well,
Peggy
One, one more ado. Oh, it was really early in the morning for me. Curtis is on the East coast. Oh yeah. I was in California. So I actually joined in a, a video call conference. So my sound isn't the best because I was trying to whisper sight, didn't wake up. My sister, <laugh>
Tony
<laugh>. Whisper sister.
Peggy
Whisper sister. And so that's all the a do. Let's move on to Kurt. All
Tony
Right. We have the privilege of welcoming back. Curtis Hemler, who's the executive director of the RV Technical Institute, and also Senior Vice President of the RV Industry Association, or RVIA. Curtis, welcome back. Thank
Curtis Hemmeler
You. Thank You. Glad be Yeah, thanks for joining us again after five years in one week, <laugh>.
Tony
Yeah.
Curtis Hemmeler
And we all look so young. I mean, it's great
Tony
Indeed. Tell us, I guess, first, who is the RV Technical Institute?
Curtis Hemmeler
Sure, sure. Well, obviously thank you to you both for, for having me back and, and I'm really excited 'cause we just celebrated our fifth anniversary. But the RV Technical Institute was five years ago, the brainchild of the RV Industry Association. The RV Dealer Association. The whole industry, if you may come together to say, we need to, we need to produce an institute that will help train and certify technicians across the country, both dealer and mobile. Because the trend of RV sales and RV service was continuing to go up.
Curtis Hemmeler
The problem to solve was to help reduce repair event cycle times or the, you know, the time that it takes when you drop an RV off and the time that you get it repaired, which has always been a pain point. But the, that's, that was the idea behind it. So $10 million was used Grammy to help stand up R-V-T-I-I have both the education of RVTI is my responsibility, but also the standards program. So our self-regulatory is interesting. Also under my tillage, our membership is the manufacturers and the suppliers that, that build them.
Curtis Hemmeler
And, and we self-regulate by following Nisa and the national electrical codes and all that. But we, we do six inspections a year unannounced to every facility. So, we'll, we'll do 20, 24 to 2,700 inspections with a team of eight every year.
Tony
I had no idea.
Curtis Hemmeler
Yeah, no, I know. That's, that's why I've been pushing, you know, as you know, I'm, I'm new to this industry. I, I, I think I can claim that till I'm 20 years because everybody here <laugh>. 20 years seems to be the starting point for a lot of people. So, but it, it's one of those things that, it goes back to when they were interviewing me and I was a very naive non rvr. I would say I was your perfect candidate to do it. 'cause I was 50 years old and kind of, you know, old white guy. And, and you know, I I, I was asked a question.
Curtis Hemmeler
I always, I laugh about this. I was asked a question by the leadership of Forest River and Grand Design, Don Clark and Doug Gatter looked at me and said, well, tell me the three biggest manufacturers. And I innocently and just said, well, Airstream, Winnebago, and Jayco.
Curtis Hemmeler
No, that's what I got. <laugh>. No. I'm like, okay, I guess I answered that wrong. And they're like, yes. And I said, okay. And so I'm thinking, I gotta think quick on my feet. Click on my feet. All right, well you obviously, I answered that wrong and I apologize. But here's what I would be thinking about Mr. CEOs, is that I am your customer. And if that's who I think are the biggest, I'd be more concerned about that than whether I just got that answer right in an interview. 'cause I'll good. And they're like, well, good point, but you still got it wrong.
Curtis Hemmeler
And so we, we laugh about that to this day. 'cause both of those gentlemen are on my board. And obviously I can answer that with a little more confidence now, the right answer. But, but yeah, it, it, very few people know. And it's kind of, I'm on this quest to, to educate the consumer better. And obviously the certification and what we've stood up here is part of that. It's the, it's about, you know, creating a certification program, professionalizing it, standardizing it so the consumer can have a better experience. 'cause they, we just have not delivered it to 'em over the years in the service side of things.
Tony
And it's, it's amazing how far it has come. And, and I see some, some big changes. I I, I'm gonna call out Bishop's RV with their B fix and they have that call in program where you can call in and say, Hey, my RV is doing this. And sometimes it's just an owner didn't catch something in the PDI, which is understandable. It's such a long process. But then sometimes they can diagnose it and order parts.
Tony
And that way you don't have to have your rv. So it, it changes the repair event cycle time. Sure.
Curtis Hemmeler
True. And, and that was, and that was one when I first came here and I was introduced to the KPI of of repair event cycle time, which is has become a, a verbiage used within the industry quite a bit. It was about improving that consumer experience by reducing that time. And, and we were on good strides. The pandemic hit, we dropped back a little bit, but we're kind of back on it now just because of the raw numbers that were produced at that time. But, you know, I look at that as a, you know, a big old elephant that we're gonna eat one piece at a time and in different ways.
Curtis Hemmeler
And you know, one of 'em is obviously having a better trained technician staff out there, both dealer and mobile. That's one big part. You know, getting parts more accessible and quicker. That's another.
Curtis Hemmeler
But then it's also educating the consumer to, you know, be able to do some of their own repairs by educating them, giving 'em an opportunity to educate and doing repairs safely. First, first and foremost that there's some repairs they can do safely. But that will reduce that backlog that, that, you know, we've experienced. And which will in turn help to reduce RECT as we call it. But, but yeah, it, you know, it's, it's decades of not doing the things right and now doing some of the things. Right. And, and everybody, Bishop is one example.
Curtis Hemmeler
They're an authorized learning partner with us, and they do a tremendous job of educating their teams and putting, you know, it's not cheap. Right? I mean, it's an investment in your people and, and they, and they are doing it. So they're one, they're one good example of a group that's doing it.
Curtis Hemmeler
Yep. You know, they hired me right or wrong, but here I am and I'm still here, so I guess I did something right. But, you know, we're five years down the road and we got 21,000 people that have interacted with us in these five years. So it was produced to produ the idea to train, certify and recruit people into the RV industry for the benefit of the consumer to have a better experience, to continue to have. And and obviously we're not perfect by any means.
Curtis Hemmeler
We will never be perfect, but we're gonna strive every day. And I think we've made some great improvements. But that's, that was the, the idea behind it, professionalized the, the curriculum. We didn't have that. It hadn't been updated in many, almost a decade. So we updated, we brought the curriculum up to date, we created the RV career path, which created a sustainable career for, for folks that want to come into the industry. And we built here in Elkhart, Indiana, we have a physical facility here. 'cause it only makes sense to, to build it here where all the, where all the action is.
Tony
And a lot of the, the curriculum comes from the manufacturers who develop these components, right. And then create a way to educate techs on Yeah.
Curtis Hemmeler
Yeah. And, and, and, and this is why I was excited and thank you for having me on your show, because as I shared with you before we even got started, is that a lot of folks don't realize that, you know, the, I wear the hat of the executive director of the RV Institute, they brought me in to build this school. That's what my professional life has been, is building career technical school. So happy to do that. But about three or four years ago, I actually took all responsibility of the standards department here at RVIA as well, which is our self-regulatory system for our manufacturers.
Curtis Hemmeler
This is, we are a self-regulated industry. We follow nitsa, national Electrical Code. And we, we have eight inspectors that go out six times a year to every facility to basically inspect them to make sure they're building RVs safely. And that's an important way we build 'em to make sure they're safely built.
Curtis Hemmeler
And so when you look at the curriculum, the curriculum actually comes from that. But standards and, and things of that nature aren't really consumable curriculum. So you had to kind of put it into a curriculum format. But that's where our curriculum comes from. These are all the experts that go into building, goes into our curriculum, and then our curriculum is then produced for the technicians. So the whole reason of taking over both of these entities for my part was they're both education. They go hand in hand. And to enhance and build this even better as we go, it was important that the two worlds come together for cohesiveness and that we would be the gold standard of, of what training needs to be in the industry.
Curtis Hemmeler
And so that's, that's what we built the curriculum off of $2 million investment into the curriculum. We had a, a group called NTI Business Solutions, a third party along with Ohio State University that helped us create the program. So it is a true certified program that is well received, accredited. And it's the only program in the country that that does that.
Tony
This is primarily for people who want to become technicians. Let's say you work at a dealership or you want to work at a dealership, or my favorite use case, somebody wants to become a tech. They, they are just like, what do I wanna do for a living? And they have maybe some skills with a screwdriver <affirmative>, and they're like, I could become an RV tech <affirmative>. And it, I don't think people are aware of how good a job that can be because your job is making people happy.
Tony
Right. <affirmative>, Hey, my water heater doesn't work. Can you come fix it? You fix it. And now they can take showers and they're all happy. Yep. So, and I know some of these independent techs, mobile techs are making a really solid living.
Curtis Hemmeler
Oh yes. A lot to answer in that question. 'cause, and I apologize 'cause the It's true. And let me start with the fact that what RVTI trains is technicians, at the end of the day, it's technicians. That's what our, our sole purpose is. But, but that can be broadly expanded to include mobile techs, dealer techs. But it also, over the years here, we've, you know, consumers, a lot of consumers, we've, we're a nonprofit too. So we, we set our set up as a a 5 0 1 C3, which means we can accept donations, folks that contribute, which is really beneficial.
Curtis Hemmeler
And we are also subsidized a lot by the industry. We actually operate at $2 million loss every year. But that's picked up by the industry because they stand behind the need for these technicians to make sure we can run a quality program. And that we don't want price point to be a, a, you know, an obstacle for people.
Curtis Hemmeler
So our program at, at $630 and, and we can get to that is, is open to the public as well. And to your point, even if you don't know the difference of a screwdriver, our program is built and designed to take folks from knowing the difference between a Phillips head and a flathead <laugh> to being able to, to repair a, you know, multimillion dollar or multi hundred thousand dollar RVs. But it's an extremely sustainable career and it's an extremely in demand because a lot of folks, when they think of an RV technician, once again, whether they're a dealer or mobile, I'm just gonna say just for purposes, technicians, 'cause we train 'em all, is that they think of auto world immediately.
Curtis Hemmeler
Well, you know, they're, they're like the auto text. It's actually the complete, it's actually the traits because only about 10% of all RVs out there are motorized.
Curtis Hemmeler
So we focus on the house part. But in a house part, you got plumbing, you got electrical, you got appliances, and that's what we teach. So when you take our program, yes, we're training to be a career in the field, a very awarding and sustainable career. But we have a lot of folks that take the level one, which is a 40 hour class that will teach you everything you need to know about every system in that, in that rv and that you'd be able to run it up. And even we teach a little bit about troubleshooting in case you run into event level two is three more weeks of training and gets more into diagnostics and troubleshooting.
Curtis Hemmeler
But a lot of folks take level one and save themselves lots of money in the long run because they can do a lot of repairs safely. You know, we teach you OMS law and things of that nature.
Curtis Hemmeler
But some people use it to go become inspectors. You know, they do, they'll do the inspection route as a, as a, either a full-time or side hustle. As I say, I can get in, I can keep going. But part of the strategy behind RVTI is we just launch, we will be launching our first high school in Colorado that the curriculum is actually, our program is in the state training. So that kids will come out already certified in our industry. And this will be, this is our first pilot.
Curtis Hemmeler
We're gonna make sure we get it right. It's a combination of using all of our resources in the industry. So manufacturers and dealer are getting involved. We provide the equipment to this high school, they teach the program and the kids come out already certified, ready to work. You know, my recommendation is go work for a dealership to start with if you're green in this. And then as you get your confidence and maybe some more additional training on starting your own business, go out and, and, and be a mobile tech if that's what is more desirable.
Curtis Hemmeler
But that, that is, that's the long marathon play that I've got going on here. And we're doing the same thing on the post-secondary. And I, I would love to expand on that maybe a little bit later on things. But you know, this not all that education's happening here in Elkhart. It's it's actually happening everywhere else.
Speaker 5
That's great.
Tony
That was a goal last time when we talked and, and it's neat to see that it is expanding out. Although as an rvr, I really do enjoy coming to Elkhart. Not because, not just because of rise and roll either. Right.
Curtis Hemmeler
<laugh> or the chubby Trout or, you know,
Tony
<laugh>. Oh yeah,
Curtis Hemmeler
There's also, when we spoke before, your goal was to have 2000 techs and now you said you've had 21,000 people come through that program.
Curtis Hemmeler
I'll clarify that exactly. So we have recruited almost 3000 people from outside the industry in these five years. So 3000 have come completely organic from outside in different formats. We have certified over 7,000. So when we first took over, there was only about 2200 certified technicians out there. There's now over 7,000 and we're growing at a rate of about 21 to 23% a year. As the program becomes more known.
Curtis Hemmeler
And, and obviously we're at a point now where, you know, where I envision this eventually being is, there's two, two forms of recruitment. There is the immediate recruitment form and then there's the long play. And the long play is the high school rollouts and the colleges, whether it be a tech school or a, a college, like I'll talk about Navarro College here in, in a second. Because you have to take the education to the, to where the consumer is.
Curtis Hemmeler
You can't expect them all to come to Elkhart. Yes, I agree, Tony, they need to come and enjoy at chubby. They need to, you know, enjoy some of the, the treats here. But, you know, as for some people, it's just not possible. So the, you know, there's a lot of, a lot of current people that might be switching careers or somebody that's wanting, you know, the the trades are, are hot right now, you know, and if I may, I'll use the word, they're sexier than they've ever been. And, and unfortunately I'm old enough to remember <laugh>, I had industrial arts in high school. Well they took that all out and some of it's now coming back.
Curtis Hemmeler
But I'm actually using our education as that's my pitch when I go to high schools. It's like, look, I've got a program that level one that you can teach in 40 hours to your juniors and seniors, and they're gonna get exposed to electrical, they're gonna be exposed to plumbing, they're gonna be exposed to all the trades.
Curtis Hemmeler
And so I'm not asking that all these folks come into the RV world, but I know we need electricians. I know we need plumbers. And they might find kids that have not been exposed, they didn't grow up wrenching, which is the majority. Now we'll choose a path of that nature and they're like, oh my gosh, you have a program like that. Yeah. And if 10 come in and one becomes an rv, I'll take that all day long. That's 27,000 RVs, new technicians, you know, in a year. So, so that's real, that's the long term play with getting this into high school. And at the same time, you know, working with people that want a career change or maybe their spouse is retired and they want to go full-time RVing and they wanna side hustle of some type.
Curtis Hemmeler
'cause you all know, you know, you pull in any campground, everyone knows that hey, go over and see, you know, Tammy or Johnny over here.
Curtis Hemmeler
They know what they're doing <laugh>. And, and what we're trying to do is take some of the bad characters out that, you know, as you all know, you don't need any certification to be an RV to at least claim yourself to be a mobile technician. Yeah. And unfortunately, you know, there, there's a lot of good, I don't want to mix the good with the bad, but there's also a lot of bad and we just wanna, especially as the new, new electrification things come out. I mean, in the old days, some of this stuff, you might get a shock. You might, you know, don't stick your hand on the burner again type thing.
Curtis Hemmeler
But some of the stuff come out now can do a lot worse. And, and you know, I don't want on my conscious somebody going, not coming home that night because they didn't, weren't trained or certified. And and certification just tells you that this person at one time knew the, the content and they had to take a test and they, and we validate it. They do know the content and how to do it safely. So,
Tony
And you can also go on the RV Technical Institute's website, <affirmative> and find these certified technicians.
Curtis Hemmeler
You can, we just added a map and that's it. That is a everyday build if you may, as you can imagine, as more folks are coming on as we're stepping into, we, you know, we, we want folks to be able to go and, and hopefully find, and there's some other platforms out there and that, but strategically, one of the things we want to do is, I'm gonna be doing a lot of these podcasts and, and getting the word out to the consumer that, you know, we aren't the auto world. Don't assume that everybody's an a SE certified tech. Look for the look for the gold and black seal, a little gear thing and it'll say RVTI certified and, and you know, that that person can perform all the measures safely and and incorrectly.
Curtis Hemmeler
We're trying just to, to make it more professionalized, you know, make the industry more professionalized so the consumer can have a better experience.
Tony
Well, well something that we often tell people is as you're doing your shopping for your next rv, 'cause as soon as you buy one, then you're like, oh look, a shinier object at the next campsite, whatever it is, picking the right dealer is a big factor in that. And that's one of the ways you can discern a better dealer from somebody who might be not quite as professional. <affirmative> is, like at the dealership I worked at, we, we had those certifications up on the wall.
Curtis Hemmeler
Yep,
Tony
Yep. So you could see them.
Curtis Hemmeler
We actually send out every year a window decal. If, if you have employed RVT certified techs at your facility, you can exhibit that, that seal, you can put that out there. And now don't be misunderstood. Doesn't mean all of their technicians may be certified, but they do have some RV TI I certified and our, and our goal is to obviously get 'em all certified, but if you don't see that seal, then yeah, they probably don't have certified technicians. Our goal is like the end is just to professionalize the industry to help the consumer recognize some of these things and understand some of these things so that they can have a better and and more safe experience.
Tony
If I remember correctly, there are three levels of certification, correct? <affirmative>?
Curtis Hemmeler
Yep. Yep. There, so part of what we created in the curriculum was the career path. And the career path has level 1, 2, 3, and actually four. Oh, okay. So, so level one is what we call the inspection level. That's the one that's 40 hours. And at the completion of that, you will have two tests that you have to take and pass. You actually, people do fail it, it's not a guarantee. You have to study, you have to take the labs. And that level will give you level one, which is the inspection. As I said, you can walk into any rv, A, B, C, doesn't matter what type of of RV it is, and be able to run up all the systems and validate that they're operating as they should in the event that they're not, there is some troubleshooting that's given in there, but it's, you're, you're not really ready to be a true technician per se.
Curtis Hemmeler
You can be an inspector, but not a, not a technician. Level two then builds off of one, but is an additional couple, about 120 hours of instruction. And you get into diagnostics and troubleshooting. At the completion of that, you're gonna have a couple more tests. And at the end of completing level two, you can go out there and, and you're, you are an RV technician, whether mobile or dealer, doesn't matter. You have the technical knowledge. Level three gets into specialties. And so currently there's about five specialties out there.
Curtis Hemmeler
There's electrical, electronic, there's slide outs. And in each one of those, there's an additional 20 hour plus of education that a technician can go. And once they complete all five of those specialty areas, they're awarded master. Okay. So right now there's no test for master. There is only the completion of one, two, and three levels.
Curtis Hemmeler
And you know, for clarity is we created it that way because we believe everyone needs to go through one and two. So once you're done with two, you, you're, you're competent. You are, you can operate safely as a technician. Mobile or dealer level three is specialty. So depending on what somebody might want to get into, they may not be, you know, this is special. Like the mobile techs per se, you know, they might want to specialize in slide outs because that's where they wanna really help. They don't have to, they don't have to necessarily sell themselves or, you know, there's no monetary increase or help to be a master unless they choose to be.
Curtis Hemmeler
So they'll specialize in that and that's okay. Right. You know, they, my concern is I would want everybody in the industry to be at least a level two. If that happens, great.
Curtis Hemmeler
Then I know everyone's operating safely. <laugh>. And, but to give you an idea of numbers, even at as many as we've increased, we're still only about 30% of our industry collectively is, is certified. To put it in comparison, in the auto world, it runs about 55 to 60%. So we've got some room to, to grow in that. But yeah, it, it's, it's, it's a career path. And you can do as far as getting the education too, you can do everything completely online. You can do everything in person in Elkhart or you can do a hybrid model where you actually do online and then you have to come to Elkhart for a week.
Curtis Hemmeler
And we run you through test after test for 40 hours. Or you can join through working for a dealership and, and go through, if they're one of our learning partners, they actually will get, you know, they have the education, it's a learning partner or somebody that is like coming to Elkhart. They have all the, all the tests, they have all the curriculum and they teach it themselves. So that's another option. It's very accessible and, and it's a very sustainable career.
Tony
So that's interesting. So there are some dealerships that can actually be their own training resources essentially. They
Curtis Hemmeler
Are, they are. That, and that was, that was, that was part, you know, five years ago. And I talked about the hub and spoke model and you think about it, a wheel on a bike, we're the hub obviously here, we're gonna continue to improve the curriculum and deliver the top-notch quality standard professionalized curriculum. But the bulk of the training's going to happen at this, at the spokes, at the ends. And, and right now we have, you know, we have a very successful program down in Texas that we've worked with for four years.
Curtis Hemmeler
It's a, a women's light. I forget how they exactly describe it. It's actually a school system in the penal system for women. You, you can't have any offense that puts you in jail for longer than two years. So, you know, there's no killing of husbands or anything out there <laugh>. But maybe they, maybe they did a, did a bad check or something here and there.
Curtis Hemmeler
I don't know. But, but we've graduated over a hundred certified folks outta level one down there. Very successful. And they've went on and, and worked for dealerships or became mobile techs. So that's a learning part of, that's one example. We have all the big dealership groups, our, our learning partners because it's more advantageous to them to actually let us give them the curriculum and they teach it at their, their facilities and how they want to teach it. 'cause we really don't dictate they can enhance, they can add things to it, but it's locked down so that at the end of the day, no one only we have the test RVTI that is and the ability to change the curriculum.
Curtis Hemmeler
So that's the part of professionalizing standardized. And anybody that's in education understands that you gotta have that base so that we know that you're taught correctly. And then of course you can add things to it, but you just can't take from it. But the learning partners are doing about 77% of all the training right now.
Tony
Hmm. But I mean if you look at it like this, let you know you're the average RVR like me and you could do a good portion of learning these systems online, then spend a week in Elkhart and now you really know your own rv. And then you might even say, you know what? I'm traveling all the time. I'm gonna get a magnetic sign, put it on my truck. And now when you go to an RV to, you know, a campground, all of a sudden you are the most popular person in the campground.
Tony
<laugh>,
Curtis Hemmeler
Tony, you just did my, my sales pitch. I've told a lot of people that want a, a side hustle or you know, I can't tell you how many folks when we're at a consumer show of any type and, and they come up and you know, they're like, oh, we love RVing and I wish we could do it more. You know, my wife is retiring next year. Sometimes, a lot of times it might be the husband's retiring. And it's interesting 'cause a lot of women will talk about women technicians. They'll be like, you know, I really wanna do this full-time with them. I wanna be with them, but I'm still working. And I start talking to 'em about the idea of becoming certified and doing just what you said.
Curtis Hemmeler
Get yourself a little sign hanging outside, don't yell at me. 'cause the line forms, you know, get one of those counters, you know, you number 12 in line.
Curtis Hemmeler
But, but that's a real thing. And that and, and and, and it's happening everywhere at campgrounds. In fact, part of the last year I started focusing on campgrounds because one of the things when I came in here, campgrounds are perfect, perfect locations to actually be training institutes also. So I'm working with a couple campgrounds that will become RVTI partners and folks, you know, in the off season or someplace where they want some extra revenue or value add to their customers.
Curtis Hemmeler
They can do some trainings to help the help that RV or to once again, remember our mission is to make the experience better for the consumer. That's our mission. And so it's having all this out and going on and getting folks trained is a small part of making that experience better.
Tony
Have you trained like campground staff members <affirmative> through this? Yeah. Yeah.
Curtis Hemmeler
So yeah.
Tony
What a, so you go to a campground and your whatever is working properly and all of a sudden the campground, I don't know, the front desk person can come over and diagnose and possibly what a brilliant, I mean, if you're a campground, especially a larger one, <affirmative> Yeah. And you advertise I have one or two certified RVTI techs <affirmative>. Yeah. You're, I mean that alone will fill up the place. Yeah.
Curtis Hemmeler
And you know, and as you know, I, I'm not from this industry, you know, I can't, my, my professional's been military and building schools. And so when I came in here, that was, to me, that was like what I figured this was happening. And it was really a surprise to me. I started focusing on it a couple years ago and, and began working, you know, in rv, the RV industry. My boss, Craig Kirby and the president has as big and, and industry unity and, and bringing campgrounds into the fold as part of that because obviously we can build 'em all day long.
Curtis Hemmeler
But if no one has a place to take 'em, you know, and, and there was a disconnect there. And I'm happy to say that that can, that relationship has really under his tillage, has really done a great job of, of building, building that up.
Curtis Hemmeler
And, and part of that is the service piece. We know that's a pain point. And, and so it only made sense to me, like you just mentioned, well, you know, shouldn't you have, whether you have somebody on staff instead of having that yellow, yellow sticky note that says, call Scott. And we don't know whether anything about Scott, you know, put someone under there and said, Hey, call Scott. He's RVTI certified. There's a <laugh> there's a, I would, I, if I was a campground owner, I would be like a sense of relaxing a little bit that work, you know, that I've got somebody that knows what they're doing on my campground from a liability standpoint.
Curtis Hemmeler
But yeah, we work very closely with the state associations that their members are the campground owners of that state of Florida, Texas, a lot of big states that we work with. And, and so we've been holding one day trainings at their conferences with their members and basically we, they told us the top 20 things to basically get an RV off my campground so they can get moving on. And, and it's been very well received. We've done a number of these now and we're gonna continue to do 'em.
Curtis Hemmeler
But yeah, it, it's to help that campground once again, make the consumer experience better.
Tony
I wonder how many campground reservations, you know, let's say somebody plans to stay five days, they get there and now the slide room won't go out or the awning won't, whatever the issue is. And now they're the, that camping or the customer is going to leave. So you lose that reservation. Exactly. One good five day reservation at some of these places. And that's the whole cost of the trading program. Yeah,
Curtis Hemmeler
Exactly. The $630 investment. And, and, and, and I just wanna say, if anybody wants to take the program, it's literally $630. That is a real number. And you get both level one and level two for that. And you, as I said, you can do it online, you can do it in person, but whether you pay a mobile tech or you take it to a dealer or you're at a campground, your slide out won't go at that six 30, I promise you will, will pay itself back tenfold over the, the lifetime. So, and, and some people that, you know, wanna be handy or, you know, I'm a married man, in fact I'll celebrate 25 years here in the next week.
Curtis Hemmeler
And I will tell you, you know, sometimes you don't wanna look bad in front of your spouse because you think, you know, and you, we wanna <laugh> now you can really know.
Curtis Hemmeler
But but going back to the woman thing that I was talking about, it's amazing when I talk to women and say, actually don't tell your guy friends or your husband that women are better at this than the men are. And the auto industry figured this out because women are more conscientious. Women pay more attention to detail. They'll actually read the directions. You know, things like that. That's all real stuff. But we, we've held quite a few women only classes through our partner at the RBW Women's Alliance group and we've conducted these trainings and they have, as a cohort perform better on testing than, you know, I think the, I think three of the women's classes hold the top three slots for the best average score on testing.
Curtis Hemmeler
Wow. So you know, this, this is, you know, you, you hear a lot of time that women don't get paid the same and, and then that kind of thing. This industry's an equalizer. I I would almost challenge it to a, a good hardwork hardworking lady can do very, very well in, in this industry. You know, it's just, unfortunately we've stereotyped a lot to say that women can't or whatever. And you know, if you find one that has the confidence, we can build that confidence, they will outperform a male typically.
Tony
Huh. Interesting.
Curtis Hemmeler
My wife told me to make sure to put this into this podcast.
Tony
<laugh>. Well I, I mean, you know, I mean I don't want to give away the whole guys code, but one of the aspects of it is don't read the instructions.
Curtis Hemmeler
Exactly. I I threw that
Tony
In there. I come on <laugh>.
Curtis Hemmeler
So you know, that extra bolt's just as a, a paperweight, you know, it's, it's a right <laugh>. But, but in, in all seriousness that, you know, it is truly a a, a very rewarding career that, that, you know, when you think about the numbers, it, a lot of times I've learned when I go out and we do, we we, we will have talked to over a million school counselors at our five-year mark. We had already talked to over a million school counselors about this as an alternative career path to a traditional route of, of education.
Curtis Hemmeler
And, and I always had to kind of explain how, you know, it, it is truly a sustainable lifelong career if they choose to. And, and unlike the auto world or the diesel world, somebody that goes into that, you know, they're gonna do the same repetitive things a lot of times on a day in the life of a auto or diesel tech, an RV tech.
Curtis Hemmeler
And this is one of the things I think most today, it's an air conditioner. Tomorrow it's a sink. The next day it's a propane system and then it's a chassis, you know, the spice of life if you may. But if you like, you know, getting in and, and fixing things and the rewards of seeing the war, your work, and you can live anywhere in the country. You, you know, you can live in the north in the winter and you can live in the south in the summer and you can go to campground, the campground. We have a lot of folks that do that. So it's more just getting the world. People don't realize it's out there. They just don't realize
Tony
Well that's what we hope to share is Yes. I mean it's, you know, you look at it and you're right, it's a, it's a lot of variety in what you do. Your job is to make people happy and make their vacations and their adventures better. And it, it's not, you don't get paid badly. Especially as a mobile tech. Yeah, you can, you can subsidize all of your adventures. You really do as a mobile tech. And my one word of caution, if somebody's going to be a mobile tech, is have your sign on your truck be magnetic.
Tony
'cause there's gonna be times where you don't want that sign on the truck. That's
Curtis Hemmeler
That's what I tell 'em all the time. Don't blame me when you got a line out there <laugh>. But you, you're exactly right. So I mean, you think, and, and, and you know, in very few careers or life work, can you really control your day in a day in the life of what you do and you really can as a mobile tech where you do it full-time or you know, or even as a side hustle. But yeah, you can do that. It's a, it's a trade. It's like I tell my grandkids, you know, give yourself options. You know, that's the key to life. Have options. Know how to do these things. AI is not gonna replace you anytime soon.
Tony
Yeah. That's, it's just a great job. Well, well it's always a pleasure to have you. I hope next time it won't be five years <laugh> <laugh>.
Curtis Hemmeler
Hopefully not. No, no. But I will, we'll, we'll all look very much even better in another five years.
Tony
Oh, absolutely. I'm sure. We'll,
Curtis Hemmeler
Yeah, no, I i I would be, I'd be honored to be on multiple times and of course to your listeners and all that, you can reach me directly as well if, if need be, if you want more information about, you know, some of the stuff we talked about today.
Tony
Yeah. How would somebody find out more and, and reach the RV Technical Institute?
Curtis Hemmeler
Sure, sure. So the, the website is rv ti.org, rv ti.org. You can either contact us through, there's an info email box you can pose your question on. You can actually go right in there and read about what the different levels I talked about how you can sign up for classes, if that's what you're interested in. You can find where certified techs are. If you're interested in working for a dealership, you can go there if you're a, if you're interested in getting the program in your local high school, you're a tech school or in the college, you know, you can reach out to me personally or I have a, a, a gentleman on the team named Justin who, and him and his team actually one, I do the initial takeover from there.
Curtis Hemmeler
But yeah, we're, we're small. We're, we're big, but we're not that big. You know, we're, we're a little 18,000 square foot, 10, 10 person team here in, in Elkhart. But just feel free to reach out directly to him.
Tony
Well that's fantastic Curtis. Thank you so much for coming back and joining us and next time we're in Indiana, we'll, we'll actually stop by dinner's
Curtis Hemmeler
Only
Tony
Be careful what you ask for <laugh>.
Curtis Hemmeler
I'll never turn down a good dinner at the chubby trout. You have to
Tony
Go. Yeah. Alright, well thank you so much.
Peggy
So while I was in California, Tony got to go camping with our friends. Yeah. And I did have a wonderful, beautiful, excellent time. But so did you right? Yeah,
Tony
I did. I got to go with, remember last week's co-host Michael and his wife Mickey, and also we've had Brian and Patrick on the podcast as well in the past. And they went and we all went to this place called City of Rocks.
Peggy
That's a state park right? In New Mexico. Yeah.
Tony
It's a state park, city of rock, state park. And they have a few water and electric sites, but nonsense on that. We all have such awesome solar and lithium systems that we went just completely off the grid. And City of Rocks is this volcanic wonder where there's all these giant rock formations and the campsites are literally kind of nestled in and among these rock formations. And they have really nice picnic tables and trash cans and it's really clean.
Tony
But bring all your levelers with you because they, because it's a natural place. You know, it's not a developed campground per se, although there are some enormous campsites. Hmm. I mean there are some where two or three big rigs could fit, but there are also some, I saw class C just kind of wedged in the rocks <laugh> in a good way. They weren't like touching the rocks.
Tony
So if you do choose to go to City of Rocks, look at the specific spots that are available. One of the reasons to go here is it is a dark sky campground. And they actually have, once a month some astronomers bring telescopes and they have this whole night sky presentation and all the are named after stellar constellations. Oh. So it was a stellar experience. Oh.
Tony
And I will share with you my, we have a GoPro like everybody else, practically <laugh>. And it has this night mode and I'm like, oh, I'm gonna try that. So I'll share that very short video with you. Mickey and Michaels were there the day before the rest of us showed up and they said that the night sky was just incredible. And then it got a little cloudy 'cause the clouds wanted in on the, on the action too.
Tony
They wanted to see. But we also went to nearby Silver City and we had this coffee and cake at a little local coffee shop. What a, what a little treasure that was, was
Peggy
It like an old mining town? Yeah,
Tony
Silver City's an old mine, but there's an enormous open pit mine there.
Peggy
I can't wait to read all about it.
Tony
<laugh>. Oh yeah. So I did write a review of the campground and the places we went at our home on the web@stresscamping.com and here's a QR code for you watching of that review and story.
Peggy
So something else that you got to have that I didn't was Brian's french onion soup meatloaf.
Tony
Yeah. It was outstanding. But here's the nifty thing that Brian did. He plugged in his Instapot and basically cooked the meatloaf the whole time he was driving to City of Rocks. Yeah. So we were caravan down there. I had no idea. I was basically chasing loaf loafs down the highway. But
Peggy
Following meatloaf
Tony
<laugh>, I was following a meatloaf down the highway. <laugh>, it happened to be wrapped up in a fifth wheel, but well hey, but there you go, whatever. And it was, oh it was so good.
Peggy
So Brian did share the recipe with me. I think we've had a version of this meatloaf, but he said this was like the one to write down. So I will be catching up from my <laugh> from my California adventure and getting that meatloaf recipe on the webpage before Thursday. And I also hope to also get you a geology story about the city of rocks area.
Tony
It's pretty spectacular. That
Peggy
Place again, you know, I'm still playing ketchup, but I will, I shall do my best.
Tony
And we didn't have to put ketchup on the meatloaf. It was that good. It's funny 'cause he opened the Instapot and it looked like French onion soup. I
Peggy
Was gonna say, you mentioned a double twist. Is that the other place you thought you were having
Tony
Soup? Yeah, the, yeah, like looked at like soup. Oh, he told us what we were having. But then also the fact that he cooked it in the rig. And I will say having a good solar and lithium system at City of Rocks, it is this beautiful off grid campground. Most there are 10 water and electric sites, but as I said, we chose to camp off the grid and just the peace and tranquility of being there was, was just really exceptional.
Tony
And the fact that you can use these, you know, everyone says, oh, I want to camp off the grid. But so many more reasons to have a great solar and lithium system. And as you know, ours came from A B, CF fitters. This was such a good example of why I love this system.
Peggy
You know, a couple weeks ago Bill said, because I like to use the microwave at a rest area to, to warm up my lunch. But I mean, come on. Who doesn't wanna show up to camp with a fully cooked meal loaf in a crock pot <laugh>.
Tony
Yeah. There, I mean there's so many other reasons other than just, you know, I want to camp like our refrigerator is running. So I took the camper this past weekend and, and by the time you join us here on the podcast,
Peggy
We'll be halfway to
Tony
Georgia <laugh>. We won't be halfway to Georgia for the FMCA or FRVA convention. We just leave the refrigerator running with food and it, don't worry about it, the system just worked perfectly the whole weekend. It's a no worry system that a B, C Outfitters will tailor to whatever your requirements are. So do you want, as some friends of ours have this just not so huge system, they can build that. Yeah. Do you want something just, you know, I, I go camping on the weekend, I want the refrigerator to run.
Tony
They can build that. So whatever your custom system is, A BC upfitters works with you to learn what your requirements are and what will serve you best and builds a system with that in mind. But also, as we've said, several people that we know who have their systems have since gone back and said, this system's so good, but I want to camp more. <affirmative>, can you, can you add more to it? Yes. So they're flexible, powerful, reliable systems and you can get yours or just learn more by visiting the link that we have to A BC Upfitters on our website or calling on the old Telephono.
Tony
5 7 4 3 3 3 3 2 2 5.
Peggy
And for my sister who missed this part last week, I'll repeat that number. 5 7 4 3 3 3 3 2 2 5 <affirmative>.
Tony
Well another gadget, speaking of solar and lithium that I had with me, the A BC outfitter system has an inverter. And if you understand how the solar and lithium systems work, the inverter does consume a wee bit of energy. But even more so starlink, which we have <affirmative> consumes a decent amount of energy,
Peggy
A little more than a wee bit of energy.
Tony
So just, I don't know, I decided at night to shut the inverter off, which is just literally a button push on our system in order to charge my phone and watch, I use this Lion energy prowler, which is a small power bank basically. And it has two U-S-B-A-U-S-B-C and another USB port on it. So you can charge like phones and that sort of thing with it.
Tony
But I also liked, as I said, it was really dark at City of Rocks. So there's a heck of a bright light on this. It's like the whole side of this power bank can be a light. And the power bank, if you're listening, I think they're three pounds. It's a small, it'll fit in a pocket because that's where I carried it around.
Peggy
It's like a big phone. Yeah, it really is. It's like your phone in one of those really hardy otter boxes. Okay.
Tony
That's a fair assessment. So there are two flashlights on it. One is just a little single LED and one is like the whole side is a flashlight and then it's 20,000 milliamp hours. So it'll, I think it'll charge a phone five, six times. Of course it depends on how big a phone and
Peggy
You can plug those into the USB ports or you can, it's that flat
Tony
Charger, right? So it also has an induction charger on it. So if you wanna just drop your phone, you know, you turn it on and drop your phone on it and it charges it that way.
Peggy
Set, not drop.
Tony
Yeah. <laugh>. Yeah, probably not. Yeah, set probably. And then you can recharge it. We bought these lion prowler in quartzite and they had a deal running where we also got these 10 watt solar panels. Aren't
Peggy
They cute?
Tony
It's a, yeah, it's a pretty small solar panel. Eight
Peggy
By
Tony
14 ish. Yeah, maybe that sounds right. It will recharge this in a day. So it's not, it's not a huge panel. I mean you can also recharge it in your car or a wall outlet or whatnot. So with
Peggy
The inverter whilst during the day <laugh>
Tony
Yeah. With the inverter during the day when you have a, a boat ton of sun. So anyway, I, we have a deal now on Lion Energy's portable power stations. Okay. And so if you're looking, I've been very pleased with what they have to offer. The quality is there, their prices are really fair. They also have a refurbished where people buy them and maybe don't understand them and send them back. Hmm. And getting the, like they have these right now and of course there's always depends on what people send back.
Tony
But they have these prowers, I saw 'em for 39 bucks on their website. Wow. Yeah. So, and I think it's 59. Normally I'm pleased with this little portable power bank. Great. We have two of them.
Peggy
Yes. One for each of us. Yeah. His, I should have taken one in the car though. That was a long trip without, I thought, oh, it's no problem. My sister and I both have iPhones, but we don't have the same kind of iPhone and I couldn't use her charger.
Tony
Oh.
Peggy
Anyway. So you also have an RV of the week to tell us. Now I This is like almost the whole Tony show too. No,
Tony
You and I got to go to Indiana and see this one when we went to intech. Okay. You really liked it.
Peggy
I did. Yeah.
Tony
It's the Intacct OVR Navigate and Intacct builds things very differently. They're, they're a company that builds commercial trailers and they build these trailers and the whole frame. And then there's a cage on top of that is one basic welded piece of a, well it's a, it's all welded aluminum. Right. So then they use a really good torsion axle suspension and it, the navigate the OVR series are kind of edgy, kind of overlanding looking trailers.
Tony
And then they, you already seen their Okta or Terra series, which are really unusual looking, but these are pretty normal looking trailers other than they're very edgy and intech trailers do not have slides. Right. And so you could argue that this would compare with Airstream, in my opinion. I think it's better made honestly. And it's definitely more spacious. It's a little bit wider than average. It's, it's really square.
Tony
And I thought
Peggy
It was unlike an Airstream <laugh>. No,
Tony
It was spacious inside or spacious feeling. Well even with outside it felt very, yeah. <affirmative>, the bathroom had plenty of space. The one we saw had twin beds, but you can get it with a queen instead. And the back has like this big L-shaped lounge, which I like. There's two things I didn't like about it. I don't like pole mount tables. Just gimme a freestanding table already. And because there's no slide, there's really no good place for the tv. But so what, go outside already.
Tony
<laugh>
Peggy
<laugh>. Yeah. It's the man who never goes outside. I know, I know.
Tony
Hey, I was outside at City of Rocks with my NUAs jacket.
Peggy
That's true. You got to stay outside and stay warm. I,
Tony
And I charged it with this Lion Power bank. There you go. So there you
Peggy
Go. So last week when I wasn't here, Tony asked you for his question of the week, what's the quirkiest thing you've seen on your Stressless camping adventures now? I was hoping I'd see pictures of pet chameleons on leashes or <laugh>. A traveling clown show or, I don't
Tony
Know, actually that's what it was at City of Rocks with all of us there.
Peggy
A traveling clown show,
Tony
A a traveling clown show. And But you
Peggy
Weren't wearing red noses and stuff, right?
Tony
<laugh>? No. And poor Mickey had to deal with all our stupid comments.
Peggy
Oh boy. Yeah. Sorry I wasn't there to help Mickey this week. I was wondering, you know, based on Brian's cooking on the road, what is your first night in camp meal? Oh,
Tony
This is
Peggy
Good. Yeah. What do you like? You know, you, you've been driving all day. What do you eat when you get there at night? That's, oh,
Tony
I love
Peggy
That. That's my question for this week.
Tony
Yeah, that's, and again, you can answer that at our fun and friendly stresses campers Facebook group.
Peggy
You can also, you know, go on our website and sign up for the once a week newsletter that is absolutely positively and completely free. Yes. And it will have links to stories, videos, and podcasts, whatever we find that will help you get the most of your RV experience. Yeah.
Tony
We've been putting a lot of links in that. No, of course. We never sell your information. We never share it. It's once a week and it's, we try to put as much value in that as we can
Peggy
All crammed into one time, because we don't have time to <laugh> any other <laugh>. Yeah. When you are on the website, you can also find the show notes for all the episodes, but in particular, this one, episode number 2 97 on the podcastPage@stresslesscamping.com
Tony
2 97. We're approaching 300.
Peggy
We're getting 300.
Tony
And by the way, next week we will be in Perry, Georgia next
Peggy
Week. Well, yes, we will be in Perry. I don't know if we'll have anything from Perry 'cause we will just have
Tony
No, no, but I'm saying if you're gonna be at the F RVA or F MCA a convention, join us. Yeah. We have three seminars and we will, will have our trailer there with our stresses camping flag flying. So yeah, check us out. Let let us know. Let's have a beer or something.
Peggy
Yeah. There's also on our website, our favorite RV products and services that has our best deals, deals, discounts, things we love, things that you should buy. I mean, things that we've bought that we <laugh>. <laugh>.
Tony
Yeah.
Peggy
Things that we think will help you get the best of your Stressless camping adventure.
Tony
Yeah. And with those deals and discounts, remember it pays to be Stressless camping.
Peggy
We're also in all the social places. So we, we, you're done getting all the deals and discounts@stresslesscamping.com. You can jump off to all those social places.
Tony
Yeah, pretty much. If there's a social network, we're there. It's there. And of course, if you don't wanna miss a future episode of the Stressless Camping Podcast, it is free to subscribe or follow us on any podcast app, including, you know, some of you have found us over on YouTube now. Yeah.
Peggy
We are saving you a seat around our virtual campfire
Tony
Indeed. And of course, reviews, thumbs, ups, shares, all of that really does help spread the word about the Stressless Camping podcast and, and really means a lot to us. So if
Peggy
You haven't had a chance to write a review or share anything, you know, reviews a kind of a one shot deal on each of those platforms, of course. And then share, you could share every day if you wanted to find something new to share and tell your friends. Yeah,
Tony
Well tell anybody. Even if you don don't like them,
Peggy
Tell everybody <laugh>.
Tony
Well with that, we really appreciate your being here for our almost 300th episode as we count down. Hopefully you're having a great time. You've got some great adventurous planned for the summer and most of all,
Peggy
Stressless camping.
Speaker 6
We hope you learned a lot and had some fun and got some tips for your next Stressless camping Adventure. We're honored by your reviews on Apple Podcasts, which helps others find us too. Don't forget to subscribe so you won't miss out on the adventure. And we look forward to your joining us next week. Until then, happy camping.
