RV Tech Institute’s ‘Hub & Spoke’ Hits Stride in Colorado – RVBusiness – Breaking RV Industry News
LITTLETON, Colo. – A team from the RV Technical Institute (RVTI) visited Littleton High School’s EPIC Campus on Tuesday, April 15, to get a first-hand look at RVTI’s long-term plan in action.
The Denver suburb’s campus offers vocational training for high school students who are interested in careers outside of the college track. Among courses offered are Level 1 RVTI certification courses.
“It overwhelms me with excitement that, as we approach year six of RVTI, that the long-term strategic goal of the true hub-and-spoke model is at work,” RVTI Executive Director Curt Hemmeler told RVBusiness after the visit. “I’m excited about EPIC being the first one to launch. This is a great partnership launching this and credit goes to Windish RV for kind of starting communications. Credit goes to Justin Rickett (RVTI senior manager for recruitment) who kind of said, ‘Hey, we’ve got something here’. And a big thanks goes to Grand Design and Don Clark who just donated a trailer to the school through Windish RV for the students to work on. This is exciting stuff.”
Assistant Principal Cathy Benton said EPIC’s purpose is to provide career track education for students who might not be interested in or financially able to attend college.
The school offers training in numerous trades.
“We’ll have an amazing future with it,” she said. “We feel like we’re opening up another doorway for students for their career.”
One student who went through the program recently was hired by Windish RV as a Level 1 certified technician.
Henry Schnelle already has started work at the Denver dealership.
“I went through the construction pathway training and then on to an electrical apprenticeship preparation class,” Schnelle said. “From that class, they brought us the opportunity to do a work-based learning internship. That’s when I first saw Windish RV as an opportunity.”
He said he enjoyed working with electricity and enjoyed carpentry but wasn’t sure either of the trades was what he wanted to do full time.
Working as an RV technician offered him the opportunity to keep his hand in different trades while being able to earn a good living.
“It makes me feel good about my future and possibly being able to afford a house within the next 30 years,” he said with a laugh. “But it looks like there’s a lot of room for growth in the industry and not like I’m going to be getting laid off or replaced by anything anytime soon. It seems like a good stable career that’s something I actually find interesting.”
Hemmeler said the RV industry can be something of an example to the trade profession world by taking advantage of programs like EPIC at a time when human resources can be scarce.
He said he credits the industry for investing in education to the point where RVTI can operate at a deficit so that students can explore career options outside of traditional pathways.
“In the past our industry has not valued the training and certification methodology like they should – that’s just the reality of it,” Hemmeler said. “But going forward, the youth of the future, they need the certification and there’s technology and things coming out that are very dangerous in high tech. Getting people certified in our industry, they get to support and promote and encourage certification from all aspects, whether it’s just a tech training or supplier training or OEM training. We need to have that certification in play.”
From a practical standpoint for parents of potential students, achieving a Level 1 or even Level 2 certification is far less expensive than sending their students off to college only to find they aren’t interested.
“We sometimes call it the parents’ savings program because the kids can come here and figure out what they don’t want to do before they spend years on tuition,” Benton said.
Dealers who would like more information about supporting such a program in their area can contact Rickett at [email protected].
