Gary Lewis followed a slightly different path for his start-up business, RV Basic Training. Yet, he maintains the same end goal as Dick Reed: To help others safely and comfortably navigate a large rig on the highway. He and his wife, Barbara, sold a business, purchased a Class A motorhome, and determined to spend retirement as nomads. However, after his first trip, Gary discovered that driving an RV is different from driving other vehicles. He enrolled in a bus driving school and obtained his CDL license and air brake certification.
The idea of a business still had not formed, but Gary says, “What a difference in my comfort level after I knew what I was doing when I drove my motor coach.”
While traveling in 2002 over Canada and the lower 48 states, Gary took a job delivering Fleetwood/Intel coaches to numerous new owners across the country. These new drivers picked his brain with questions: How do air brakes work? How do you make turns in a large vehicle? How do you adjust mirrors? How do you keep this big vehicle centered between the lines on the highway? He identified a need common to almost every new owner of an RV—basic training in navigating a motorhome or towing a trailer. He put together a one-day course covering all aspects of safe driving that commercial drivers must know and applying that knowledge to what every RV driver should know. In late 2005, he launched RV Basic Training.
Like Gary Lewis, Dennis Hill transported new RVs for three years before he signed on as a driving instructor for the Dick Reed RV Driving School. Dennis spent time at different locations, including the Life On Wheels RV Conference, giving lessons to less experienced drivers. Retired from the U. S. Marine Corps, Dennis had ended his 21 years of service in Virginia. First, he returned to college setting a goal for a four-year degree. In order to stay in the area while their two Korean-adopted children finished high school, he worked at a number of jobs from driving a truck to working in a jail.
Dennis admits he loves to drive and he accrued approximately 200,000 miles of driving while working for Horizon Transport Company. While he was on the road delivering RVs, Carol worked in a campground’s tree nursery. She spent her spare time line dancing. Jokingly, Dennis calls her the “Line Dance Queen” and says his primary job is driving her to line dancing conferences. However, Carol is quite capable of driving herself. When the Hills present seminars and driving demonstrations for the RV Boot Camp at Escapades, Carol backs their 40-foot motorhome into a 45-degree angled parking space. Dennis gives hand signals while Escapee members look on.
The Hills were experienced RVers for more than three decades before they began full-timing. In his military career, Dennis typically had 30 annual days off. The family spent vacations traveling in various types of rigs. “Every time we went out especially after our son and daughter grew up, we didn’t want to return home,” Carol says. All that time, they thought about full-timing, saying, “…if this happens, and this happens, and this happens…”
Eventually, they found themselves living in a large house with a 21-year-old son who was ready to move out on his own. Dennis says: “Selling the house remained the single ‘if only…’. We went into ‘zoom’ mode, had garage sales and sold the house. In 2000, we moved into our RV and headed for Alaska.” They have traveled to our northern-most state three more times, promoting their RV Driving School in recent years.
Dennis Hill and Gary Lewis each capitalize on the Internet for their business, giving access to customers round the clock. “Potential clients look at our web page, www.rvschool.com, and then e-mail us for information,” Dennis says. “When I know the dates a person wants lessons, I contact one of my instructors near the client’s location and ask if he is available. Then I send the client a confirmation e-mail. Often, I never actually speak to someone registering for lessons.”
Gary says, “Our website, www.rvbasictraining.com is our office on the road. A customer can send us an e-mail, order a manual, or make a reservation for my Mini RV Boot Camp (different from the Boot Camp affiliated with Escapees.) Their message goes directly to my Smart phone and we can seamlessly deal with it. There is no such thing as being out of the office.”
He explains that his wife, Barbara, is the control person, working in the background to make sure the “i’s” are dotted and the “t’s” are crossed. “My job is new business development, sales and training,” Gary says.
Both businesses employ experienced trainers to teach the driving skills, thus, creating additional Workamper jobs. Presently Gary has eight experienced trainers around the United States, and hopes to increase his number to 20 by the end of 2012. Dennis has ten instructors who accept clients on their particular schedules.
“My instructors consider their jobs as part-time and most say their earnings are ‘fun money,’” Dennis says. “In fact, RV Driving School is a part-time business. We’ve never taken money out of the business to support our lifestyle. It doesn’t buy the motorhomes we’ve had. The business pays our expenses—puts fuel in the tank and tires on the wheels. And it’s fun.”
Gary Lewis agrees that his instructors’ earnings are extra money, and not their main source of income. “Our trainers receive a percentage of the billing and the company is responsible for producing the driving manuals, advertising, and the cost of the website.”
In addition to instructing drivers of motorhomes and trucks towing trailers, Gary and his trainers conduct classes for mobile clinic drivers. “Our customer base includes universities, counties, corporations, and community health centers,” he says. “Recently we trained five drivers for a new mobile dental clinic in Hagerstown, Maryland. We also have a program going on at Los Angeles County-University of Southern California Medical Center to train 12 Breathmobile drivers. (The Breathmobile is a 33-foot Winnebago van equipped to function as a mobile asthma clinic.) Our customers come from dealer referrals, Internet inquiries, and recommendations from satisfied customers.”
Each school covers a pre-trip inspection of the RV, mirror adjustments, right and left turns, stopping and following distances, backing, and judging how far the “tail” of the vehicle swings into another lane when turning.
Dennis puts his clients at ease when he says: “You already know how to drive. But you would drive a Volkswagen differently from a Cadillac. That’s what we do—teach you how to drive a motorhome differently.”
He goes on to say that individual lessons are a good investment, generally costing less than an insurance deductible. “Most accidents in motorhome occur in campgrounds or at fuel stops,” Dennis says. “We try to teach our drivers too avoid those mishaps. In my seminars, the one thing I stress is ‘slow.’ Going slowly into a fuel center or backing into a campground space can cut down on these accidents.”
Dennis is well known for his exaggerated insistence that we are driving recreational vehicles, emphasizing the recreational. “Hey, I’m retired,” he says. “If it’s not fun, I’m not doing it!” His humor and friendly style have endeared him to numerous seminar attendees.
Both RV Driving School and RV Basic Training provide their graduates with a certificate of completion and proficiency. Gary sends his clients back on the highways with the Motor Home Driving Course Manual, a review of the material covered in the lessons. The manual is also available on his web site.
Dennis says that Dick Reed wanted to sell his RV Driving School to an instructor—someone like Dennis who would manage the business as carefully as he had. Now in its 20th year of operation, the Hills determined they would follow Dick’s lead and sell the school to George and Valerie Mayleben, who plan to continue the high standards set by Dick and Dennis. The web site www.rvschool.com will continue, and the telephone number for the school will remain 530-878-0111. Dennis will work with the school as an instructor.
George Mayleben has been teaching and instructing people on the safe operation of vehicles for over twenty years. He brings his knowledge and skills to the school and expects that the tradition of quality instruction and behind the wheel teaching will continue. George and Valerie have been full-timers for five years and George has been a respected instructor for Dennis Hill for four years.
Now, the RVing population needs only so many driving and training schools. However, the example of these entrepreneurs who put their life skills into a business on the road will, perhaps, help other Workampers to think outside the box and launch his or her own dream.