The National RV Training Academy (NRVTA) said it successfully lobbied for RV technicians to be added to a list of high-demand occupations in Texas.
Doing so allows the school to apply as an eligible training provider to meet the demand for training RV service technicians. Students in Texas and other states who qualify for financial assistance through programs offered by the Texas Workforce Commission and Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act will soon be able to take courses at the academy and apply to have tuition costs paid by a qualifying program.
NRVTA was licensed by the Texas Workforce Commission as a career school in April 2021. That enabled the academy to be placed on the list of approved training facilities maintained by the agency’s Office of Vocational Rehabilitation Services. That allowed disabled workers to qualify for state funding to attend classes at the school, said Stephanie Henson, NRVTA director of administration. Yet, additional work was needed to make that financial assistance available to other Texas residents who qualified through programs such as WIOA.
“We also needed to become an approved training school to be on the statewide Eligible Training Providers List,” she explained. “However, in attempting to do so, we encountered our first roadblock because the job of RV service technician was not on the Texas list of targeted occupations for high-growth, high-demand careers.”
Training providers, like NRVTA, could only apply to be on the training providers list if their programs produced graduates who could work within one of the targeted occupations on the statewide list, said Henson.
“Because RV technicians were not on the ETPL list in any Texas county, we had to get the career field recognized by the state in order for us to become an approved training school,” she explained.
“We know RV technicians are in high demand across the nation, but especially in our own state since many RVs are bought and sold in Texas, and many RVers travel in and through the state,” said Henson. “The ability for RV users to have their units serviced in a timely manner is essential to the RV industry in Texas. We knew we needed to get this changed.”
To get the ball rolling, Henson set up a meeting last September with representatives of a local workforce development board. She explained how important the RV industry is to Texas and demonstrated why RV technicians are a high-demand labor force.
“There is a nationwide shortage of RV technicians. I knew we could help individuals who desire retraining or skilled training to get the education they needed to be successful in well-paying jobs at their local RV dealership or at an RV service repair center,” Henson explained. “We also know many of our graduates go into business for themselves as successful mobile RV service technicians.”
In April, the East Texas Workforce Development Board’s Economic Development Committee met to grant formal recognition to the RV technician job title so it could be added to the targeted occupation list. One month later, the entire board voted to approve the change.
“Now that RV technicians have been added to the statewide targeted occupation list, we can move forward in applying to become the only school in Texas to serve this market,” said Henson.
“We are planning to apply this fall when the state’s application program reopens after a summer break. The local workforce office has already approached us to recruit students for our programs who qualify for these funding programs,” she added. “Once approved, we can begin accepting new students under programs funded through WIOA. “We hope to have that approval completed before the end of this year.”
