Garry Enyart, Director of Cummins Mobile Generator Business, has been elected Chairman of the board for the RV Industry Association (RVIA), reports Business Wire.
Enyart began his career with Cummins in 1972 and became involved in the RV industry in 1978 as a sales representative. Many of the RV OEM accounts and people he called on back then are still people he works with today.
“Cummins has a long history of providing support to the RV Industry. What I truly enjoy about this business is that it provides individuals and families the opportunity to explore the great outdoors. Cummins engines get people to their destination and our generators provide them the comforts of home, and that is something of which I am very proud.”
Enyart has served the RV industry with Cummins for more than 40 years. He has also held various roles and positions on numerous RVIA committees, including the RVIA executive board since 2005 and the education committee.
One of the initiatives launching under Enyart’s leadership will be creating the first RV Technical Institute to recruit, train and certify RV technicians. Shortages of RV technicians have created disruptions, extended repair times and threatened growth in the RV industry for several years. A brand-new training facility will be built in Elkhart, IN, and become the center for operations.
“It’s an exciting time for the RV industry,” Enyart said. “There are a number of initiatives we are launching, and after 50 years the industry will be launching a new trade show format called RVX at Salt Lake City, UT, in March.”
Creating an “RV Technical Institute” sounds all warm and fuzzy. If this takes off, great. We’ll see.
RVIA should put the $$ into making the RV manufacturers build a better product. That would take a tremendous load off the selling/repairing dealers and shops. Training a handful of wrench jockeys to fix their ongoing poor QC is NOT addressing the problem. In fact, it may even encourage even worse QA and QC since they will feel that there are more ‘trained’ techs now to fix their problems, most of which are created at the factory.
I generally don’t weigh into these sort of arguments, but I’m willing to go on record stating that better education of RV technicians is a WIN-WIN thing. My entire 50-year career in electrical troubleshooting has been focused on training other engineers and technicians on advanced test procedures, which reduces downtime and repair costs. I feel this education will trickle both up and down the food chain, with manufacturers having a more qualified base of workers for their factories, and RV dealerships having more qualified technicians to hire. I’m pretty sure that dealerships don’t WANT irate customers with RVs sitting on the lot for months. And RV manufacturers don’t enjoy warranty repairs and the general consumer distrust that many buyers feel. I’ve offered my training services to the RVIA and everyone else who will listen, so we’ll see how it goes.
The executives definitely live in a whole different world than reality ….