MIAMI – Since December of 1987, Dave Kelly has worked for the Florida RV Trade Association (FRVTA), taking over as executive director in 2020. His 38th anniversary will be the last, as he has decided to retire in 2026.
“I just feel like it’s time for someone else to take the reins.” said the 66-year-old Kelly Friday during the FRVTA’s annual convention.
Taking those reins will be Ken Loyd, who has a long history with the FRVTA.
He became a member in 2014 at the regional level, “then I became vice president and then shortly after being vice president, our president got transferred out of state and I became the president. I was president of Region 6 for four years, and then went to the treasurer for the state office, then I got bumped from treasurer to president and then to chairman and here I am,” he said.
Loyd ran Flamingo Lake RV Resort, near Jacksonville, Fla., until 2020. Since then he’s been managing the development of Keystone Heights RV Resort, in Keystone Heights, Fla.
He’s served on the board of the Florida/Alabama Park and Campground Association since 2016.
Loyd said he’s looking forward to learning the ropes and carrying the FRVTA forward.
“I had a lot of support when I contacted Lance (Wilson), our former executive director before Dave. And Lance said, ‘I’m 100% behind you. I’ll do whatever you need me to do. You’re exactly what we need,’” Loyd said.
No firm date for the transition was announced, but Loyd said he will work with Kelly through the Tampa RV SuperShow in January with Kelly retiring sometime afterward in the Spring.
Industry Updates
Friday’s agenda at the convention included updates from RV and campground industry leaders including Curtis Hemmeler, RV Technical Institute (RVTI) executive director; Jason Rano, RV Industry Association (RVIA) vice president of governmental affairs; Jeremy Greene, RVIA vice president of marketing; Phil Ingrassia, RV Dealers Association (RVDA) president; and Bobby Cornwell, Florida and Alabama RV Park & Campground Association president and CEO.
RVTI
Hemmeler – whose mission is to increase the number of RV techs throughout the industry – asked the Florida RV dealers assembled before him how many of them had an RVTI-certified tech working for them.
Roughly a third of them raised their hands.
“Okay, we got about a third of the room,” Hemmeler said. “It’s lots of work to do for the rest, but at the same time, if I would have asked that question a few years ago and there’d be no one.”
He offered a snapshot of RVTI’s growth since its inception five years ago.
“Two years ago, we we were at 13,754 individuals… and as we stand here right now we’re just under 23,000 people in less than five years. So very proud of that.”
Those interactions have generated close to 7,500 certified RV technicians. In Florida, he noted, 62 dealerships employ a certified technician.
Looking forward, Hemmeler pointed to the RVTI’s first college program at Navarro College in Corsicana, Texas.
“We do have presence at J-Tech, here in Jacksonville, Fla., but they paired it with the Yamaha Motor Hub Marine Program and it’s an associate’s degree. So that’s been up and running. We’ve had some graduates in there,” Hemmeler said. “But what makes Navarro different is that it’s going to be purely the RVTI program with some added classes.”
He also pointed to EPIC High School in Littleton, Colo.
“This is epic. This is the first high school where the students actually have graduating credit with our program that’s launching in January,” he said. “And once again, these two projects are how we are going to continue to grow and improve for our industry in both high school and post-secondary.”
Other active and new projects at RVTI included:
- Travel training to dealerships
- Find a certified tech website
- Spanish testing an curriculum
- Mentoring and tutoring options
- A new director of training and strategy
- An RVDA/RVTI service survey
- A complete curriculum reset
- Exploration of AI to enhance the training experience
On the standards front, Hemmeler talked about the upcoming ground monitoring interrupt (GMI) regulations and how it will affect the entire industry.
“The campgrounds are very, very aware of it,” he said. “It is something that is coming as early as 2027 models. RVs will come with a little device. … And the idea is that the pedestal has to be 100% correct and operating correctly or it’s going to trip that device. So why I’m telling all of you? Because how many of you have pedestals at your dealership? You have got to make sure your pedestal is working properly. That’s about the best you can do at this point. If you haven’t messed with that pedestal in 20 years, you might want to have it checked out. So that’s the only advice that we can give right now. Keep an eye on RVIA’s website because we will constantly put information in there as it comes available.”
Government Affairs
Rano talked about legislative and regulatory priorities that the RVIA has been working on, including passage of the dealer floorplan tax parity act, which he described as a “true partnership between RVIA and RVDA and all of our members to get this over the finish line. I want to shout out, especially Congressman Yakym who like his predecessor, Congresswoman Jackie Walorski, fought to get on the tax writing committee.”
He added, “Dealers made a huge impact. We stood up quite quickly, again in partnership, a grassroots effort to send letters to members of Congress from dealers saying, ‘this is important to me.’”
Rano also mentioned the closure of the de minimis loophole, which provided an unfair advantage to foreign-made goods under $800 being shipped into the U.S.
Regarding tariffs, he noted, “What we’ve heard time and time again from our members isn’t necessarily, tariffs are good, tariffs are bad, but what we’ve heard is the desire for certainty. Tell us what the rules of the game are, lock them in so that we can adjust. And I’ll tell you a story. We had one member who called me. He had a shipment that was loaded onto a boat ready to leave China, but the boat didn’t depart before the tariffs went into effect, and it cost him hundreds of thousands of dollars.”
The RVIA now has a tariff tracker in place that is continuously updated, “because it is incredibly complicated to navigate. We understand that. We’re also doing e-blast out with breaking news. …We know how difficult it is to navigate.”
Rano also talked about the RVIA’s efforts regarding franchise laws and outdoor recreation, including the Great American Outdoors Act, as well as efforts to blunt the sale of five million acres of public land, mostly in Utah.
“You’ve probably heard about funding cuts, especially the National Parks and staffing cuts. We’re trying not to get caught up in the screaming about it and trying to better understand how it’s impacting RVers.,” he said.
He spoke about PFAS – thousands of chemicals that are used in RVs as waterproofing and stain repellents in fabrics and upholstery – and the potential impact regulation could have on the RV industry.
He said the RVIA has been active in pushing back on legislation that could be burdensome for the RV industry.
He mentioned three cornerstone events the RVIA hosts each year – the Leadership Conference, RVs Move America Week and the Aftermarket Conference – and urged those in attendance to take part if at all possible.
He also urged attendees to take advantage of the RVIA’s twice-weekly News and Insights newsletter.
“It’s a great way to hear what’s going on in the industry, whether it be government affairs, research. The new market forecast comes out through news and insights. It’s free to sign up. It’s a great resource and highly recommended,” he said.
Go RVing
Greene provided demographic research from Go RVing which showed 8.1 million households currently own an RV and that there are 16.9 million “intenders.”
Greene said, “These are folks who said, ‘Within the next five years, I intend on purchasing an RV.’ So we probably won’t capture that 16.9 million, but it shows the potential that’s out there.”
Comparing the RV owner profile of today to 2021, he said, “We find a couple of things. They become much younger and become significantly more diverse, 85% Caucasian in 2021 down to 73% in 2025. 43% of them have children in the home, up from 34%. So its great to see that we are trending younger and we’re trending more diverse, looking more like the American consumer.
Go RVing also looked at the median number of days and RV was used. Today, it’s 30 days, up from 20 days in 2021 – a 50% increase.
“This is fantastic to see,” Green said. “There was some thoughts out there that we brought in all these new buyers during COVID, and there might be some questions about use or would they kind of phase out after things opened up again? And what we’ve seen is people who have purchased RVs during that timeframe, they’re using them more than they thought they would, and they haven’t shifted away from the lifestyle.”
He said people are, “increasingly valuing the types of experiences that RVing provides them. Outdoor recreation has exploded since COVID, and that is not going away. Folks are looking to make memorable moments with the ones that they care most about, and they’re looking to do it in outdoor spaces. This is a trend that will absolutely continue. The dollars being invested by brands into the outdoors is astronomical – $7.2 billion in the last year. We’re looking at over $10 billion invested this year in outdoor media spend. So it’s a significant amount of money to capture this audience. So it shows that we are right in that American cultural conversation where we need to be.”
Regarding Go RVing’s mission, Green said, “We are all about the future. We want to future-proof the category. We want to fuel curiosity for what RVing provides for somebody, and then we want to spark a desire for them to take that next step and join the lifestyle.
He added, “We certainly know the massive lift that the industry saw when it became the center of attention during COVID. Economic conditions right now have been challenging for sales. But I hope what you take away from this today is we’ve got a great runway. We’re really in a great position at the center of American culture. RVing and outdoor experiences are being sought after, they’re being talked about. You find them in TV shows, in movies. Every single truck commercial has an RV in it these days. Podcasts, the most popular podcast in the world, they talk about RVing. Celebrities are talking about it. This is where Go RVing tries to make that impact. We have to stay in the middle of American culture. And they’re being talked about in a positive way.
“This isn’t Cousin Eddie in Christmas Vacation RVing. This is what folks want to do. And it’s being talked about and celebrated across our culture. So what we’re focused on, continuing to show RVs in a positive light, making sure we’re continuing to shift consumer perceptions about the industry, and we really do feel like where it puts for long term, sustained success for this industry.”
RVDA
First on Ingrassia’s agenda was a note of thanks to the FRVTA.
“I want to congratulate everybody in this room,” Ingrassia said. “The Florida RV Trade Association is one of the – if not the best – state RV associations in the country. And in my role as president of RVDA, I work with a lot of state groups. Right now we’re currently trying to get Cal RVA back to being a functioning group. After COVID it just kind of disintegrated because of some leadership vacuum there. But FRVTA over the years has been consistent, it’s well-funded and is well-run. And Dave, you’ve done a great job over the years. So we look forward to working with the board. The FRVTA volunteer leaders past and present have a lot to do with the progress as well.”
Ingrassia then gave a market overview, outlined RVDA board priorities and discussed professional development opportunities.
The latest dealer survey, which he encouraged those in attendance to fill out, showed six out of 10 dealers were comfortable with towable inventories. Three in 10 said they were too high. The converse is true with motorized units where six in 10 said inventories were too high and three in ten said inventories were too high.
He shared comments Baird, a financial services firm that provides market analysis and research on the RV industry and does the survey for RVDA:
“We believe OEMs are managing shipments tightly to keep inventories in line through the model year transition, at least until the dealer open house in Elkhart next month, or this month. For 2025, our models were being based roughly on 330,000 shipments implying a slower cadence of production in the second half of the year.”
Priorities for RVDA going forward include improving repair event cycle time. He noted that dealer management software providers have all instituted RECT reporting.
Also, continued work legislative issues in cooperation with RVIA and the establishment of a help desk to heal dealers get in touch with the RVDA and take full advantage of services offered.
Regarding professional development opportunities, Ingrassia talked about the Mike Molino Learning Center, which is the industry’s leading resource for targeted publications, certification programs, online learning, and live workshops for dealership staff.
”The professional development and educational resources offered by the learning center help dealers maintain professionalism and efficiency even as markets change. Technology for education and training allows the Learning Center to keep dealers prepared for whatever regulatory or economic challenges arise,” he said.
“These front-facing people, our service managers, service writers, warranty administrators, parts managers, the parts clerks who we always talk about training in this industry, and a lot of times it’s tech training, which is super important. We all know that,” he said. “But also our frontline folks that support the techs and support sales, they need training too. So we have very affordable online training now available for all those positions for $150 bucks.
He encouraged those in attandance to attend the upcoming RVDA convention in Las Vegas in November.
“We’re going to be talking about the issues that are really impacting dealers right now. And diversifying revenue streams will be one of the topics that we’ll be talking about,” he said. “So I know it’s a tough pull sometimes to go to the convention, but I really encourage you to do that because one of the things that dealers have told me over the years is that the convention not only gives them the education that they need and some of their people need, but it also brings them together with manufacturer’s, suppliers so that they can form some profitable partnerships.”
Florida/Alabama RV Parks and Campgrounds
Cornwell shared statistics on caming and travel in Florida.
“Florida is the number one camping and travel destination in the world. Florida attracts over 123 million visitors a year. There are over 12 million campers camp in Florida annually and 93% of camping visitors intend to return to Florida. So being visitors year after year after year. The Florida RV park industry has a $6 billion impact, supports 40,000 for jobs, two billion in wages and $785 million in taxes,” he said..
There are 1,250 licensed RV parks and approximately 150,000 RV sites the state with an average park size of 250 sites. Some parks are as large as 1,600 sites, he said, adding that the majority of parks are independently owned but there’s significant shift in ownership by large corporations.
”You all have seen consolidation with the dealership side and that it’s happened with the campground side as you well. We have three or four companies that probably running 25, 30% of all the parks in Florida, and that’s growing,” he said. “What we’re also seeing growing is not just larger corporations, but smaller companies that may have five or six parks that they’re buying up. So the mom and pops are… they’re going away.”
From 2024 to 2025 Florida added 1,400 RV sites, with 5,000 added since 2021.
Regarding demographics, park owners are telling him they are seeing a shift to younger, Millenial campers.
“So yes, the millennials are coming, campers are getting younger. But the reality here in Florida, we’re a different beast than the rest of the nation. And, yes, we still cater to the 55 plus crowd,” he said.
“For Florida campgrounds business is firm overall. It’s not a horrible year. We’re down from 2024, but it’s still pretty steady,” he said. “And the park owners that that do say they have a loss, it’s usually between five and 10%. Once again, that’s not for everybody. You could have a park down the street that’s a 10% decrease, and then another park that is level, or even as they increase.Iit’s just like any other business. If it’s well run and offer great customer service. You’ve got the amenities that people want, vacation that people want to be in you’ll be OK.”
Saturday breakout sessions at the convention included:
- Dealer Compliance & Knowledgebase
- Florida Sales Tax Issues
- All Roads Lead to RV Security
- How to Conduct the Perfect Vehicle Inspection
- Mediation to Defend a Consumer Claim and Retain Your Customer
- Driving Sales & Service with AI
- Mid-Year Market Review: Key RV Industry Trends for 2025
