I recently made a major change from DevOps Manager to Mobile RV Technician and I feel compelled to tell the story, just in case others out there might be considering similar changes.
Born into the Tractor Business
More specifically agricultural, construction, and forestry machines. My father started a tractor dealership when I was 7 years old. Dad happened to be a retired US Navy Veteran, machinist, and diesel technician. Our tractor dealership started with a single Rhino tractor parked in our front yard. Which happened to front on highway 101 in Port Townsend, WA. Since Dad was a machinist we also performed repairs and custom fabrication, often on equipment other dealers turned away.
Dad also loved going to auctions. He would buy just about anything he thought he could make money on. This included trucks, tractors, excavators, and even travel trailers and boats. We would bring these auction finds home and blast them down to bare metal. Then we would repaint, rebuild, and sometimes reimagine them. Often to the point they were basically new again (or better...) and then park them out front by the highway where people could see them.
Selling the Family Business
Dad sold the business shortly after I graduated from High School. After some trials and tribulations (an internship at Disney World and working at Lowes) I eventually went to work for one of the manufacturers we represented, MTD Products (Cub Cadet, Troy Bilt, Yard Man etc). I then spent the next decade or so working in a technical sales capacity with heavy equipment and/or outdoor power equipment and experiencing several layoffs and other disappointments that sparked an interest in a career change.
Since about 2015 my interests and learning trajectory had taken me from technical sales in the heavy construction equipment industry to working as a project manager for software and technology projects. My interest in computers and software started as a kid. I’ve been building computers and playing with basic coding such as HTML, javascript, and python over the years as a hobby. Crypto mining rekindled my interest in software and the ability to coordinate machinery and hardware with software. I thoroughly enjoyed building and refining my crypto mining rigs and witnessing the early trajectory of blockchains like Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other GPU mineable altcoins.
Riding the IT Wave
This wave took me all the way to Project Manager and cofounder of a software development business (Puget.Tech) in 2018 which we sold in 2022. I then was offered a job as a DevOps manager for an ophthalmology research center and later moved to Florida.
Then quite abruptly I was laid off along with many of my coworkers as well as large numbers of other folks in the software and technology sector. Suddenly tech jobs became scarce, the recruiters that had been annoying me almost daily were now silent, so I enrolled in classes to knock out a few more certifications (tech and IT love their certs...) while I searched for opportunities.
Cybersecurity Classes
I chose cybersecurity at WGU as I had taken classes there previously and the program was a good value because it included a number of IT certifications which were of interest. A few months into the program I realized I hated it. The classes seemed hastily thrown together, many were linking to content on Udacity and other similar non-college education platforms. It seemed like a thankless job. Trying to protect people who have no interest in preventing security breaches and a full time job in DevOps or Cybersecurity feels like 2 jobs because once your “day job” finishes you’re spending your personal time keeping up with CEU’s to maintain your certs or get new ones. Things are constantly changing and it’s almost a second full time job just to keep up. This seemed miserable so I informed my WGU mentor, finished up my classes for that semester, and didn’t enroll for the next one.
The Road to Mobile RV Technician
Roughly 2 years before moving to Florida my wife’s uncle attended a 10 week RV technician training school called Recreational Vehicle Service Academy or RVSA. The school was located in Palmetto, FL but has since moved to Trenton, FL. This uncle went back home to Mississippi and introduced himself to the local RV dealer. The dealer has been sending him work ever since and he’s been far busier than either of us ever would’ve believed.
The Opportunity
Many dealers have service departments that are months behind on work so they aren’t even offering service or repair for anything they didn’t sell and many of them won’t service or repair anything more than 10 years old. To put it mildly, there are opportunities for people who are willing to work and I loved the idea of getting outside more and working with my hands. There’s something about repairs that give a sense of accomplishment when the job is completed.
I knew about this opportunity before we moved to Florida but at the time I was working and the school was 2.5 hours away. Much too far to commute and rent in the Tampa area is ludicrous so I shelved the idea. Then when I was laid off I started looking for ways to overcome the distance issue so I called the school and found out they had moved up north to Trenton, FL where they are located within an RV park with affordable monthly spaces reserved for RVSA students.
I don’t have an RV but I do have an almost brand new 7x16 cargo trailer with a side door. So I set about installing a heat pump and on September 11th 2023 I was part of the first class at the new Trenton, FL location at Otter Springs Campground. That cargo trailer was my home for the next 10 weeks as an RVSA student.
The RVSA School
The RVSA school has been around since 1986 and is a great value compared to other schools out there. The curriculum at RVSA gives you first hand experience working on many different types of RV systems and appliances.
Bob and Mike at RVSA have years of RV expertise and spent the next 10 weeks with us while we learned, from hands-on experience, how to diagnose, repair, and upgrade a broad range of RV’s large and small as well as service and installation of the major RV appliances and generators. There were only 11 other students in this class so there was plenty of interaction with Bob, the instructor, and several class members were veterans who were making good use of their VA benefits.
Fall 2023 was the first class since moving from the previous location in Palmetto, FL. You can read more about Otter Springs Campground and the ForVets organization in this article: RV tech school comes to Otter Springs Park & Campground
I’m very excited about the prospects of my new business adventure as a mobile RV technician at Vero RV in Vero Beach, FL. I’m hoping to leverage my IT and networking experience (and my CompTIA A+ certification) to provide technical services such as RV internet access, networking, streaming, and security systems.
