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Straight Talk
From RV Consumer Educators Joe and Vicki Kieva
Armed with a a common-sense teaching style, This california couple offers RVing advice to millions of consumers in magazines and at seminars across America.
The Kievas' RV Curriculum
Most people in the RVindustry no doubt have heard of Joe and Vicki Kieva by now because they arguably are among the more influential voices today at the consumer level.
They've produced countless educational seminars for RV shows and rallies across the country as well as videos, books and magazine columns designed to help consumers enjoy RVing as much as the Kievas have through more than 40 years of travel in both motorhomes and trailers across North America, Mexico and Europe.
"RV Insight," the Kievas' monthly column in Highways, the official publication of the Good Sam Club, reaches more than 1 million RVers. They also produce another monthly column titled "RV Know How"for Woodall's regional publications as well as brief articles for Kampgrounds of America Inc.'s e-newsletter, KOA Kompass,"
The Kievas' website, www.rvknowhow.com, includes numerous articles on educational topics plus information on their three books, RVing Made Easy, Extended RV Travel and RVing Tips, Tricks and Techniques. The site has information about their two videos, "Easy RVing" and "Top 40 RV Camping Tips." The Kievas, an energetic couple who travel in a Country Coach Allure, also regularly conduct seminars for Gaylord Maxwell's annual "Life on Wheels" conferences.
So, how was it that the Kievas came to establish themselves as credible authorities and ambassadors at large for the RV travel sector? It's an interesting story.
Joe, originally from North Andover, Mass., was working years ago as a Los Angeles County Sheriff's deputy, specializing in search-and-rescue missions when, late one December night in 1972, he was involved in a search on a snow-covered 8,000-foot peak outside of Los Angeles. "A kid had fallen down an ice chute, and they dropped us out of a helicopter to get to him," Kieva recalled. "And while we were there, a blizzard came in. And so we spent the night. We saved the kid. But in the process, I ended up with really severe frostbite in my fingers and toes. They talked about taking off my toes."
Only 32 at the time, Joe gradually recovered. Having been left with what a doctor described as the hands and feet of a 75-year-old, he soon realized that he could no longer pursue his chosen career. Not knowing what they would do to support themselves and their three kids, ages 4 to 9 at the time, the Kievas decided they needed to take an extended RV trip to clear their minds and renew their spirits. So, in 1974, Vicki Kieva quit her job as a school secretary and, after arranging for their kids' continued education, pulled them out of school and embarked on a five-month, 47-state journey that would ultimately change their lives and cement their enjoyment of the free-wheeling RV lifestyle. At least that's the way they remembered it recently, when interviewed by RV Business Editor-at-Large Jeff Crider at their Huntingdon Beach, Calif. home.
RVB: That first big RV trip sounds like quite an experience.
JOE: It was, and it's interesting: Our kids today, still, whenever they get together, come up with something about "The Big Trip." That's what they call it. The 4-year-old, now 33, remembers the way the sky turned black when the bats came out of Carlsbad Caverns and the way the ground shook at Niagara Falls and the way the geysers smelled at Yellowstone. It's all sensory stuff. It was interesting. It was a great trip for us.
VICKI: It was the best thing we ever did.
JOE: It healed me. And then, after being gone that long, it's a whole different attitude that comes over you. You get addicted to this extended travel. After that, all the jobs, everything we ever did after that, we always worked it so that we had a four to six week trip somewhere, sometimes two in a particular year.
RVB: Now, what kind of RV did you have for that?
VICKI: It was a 17-foot trailer. And it was so small that it was either a bedroom or it was a kitchen. When it was time for the kids to go to bed at night, the kids and I would go outside and Joe would-bring down'the beds, that came out of the walls. The back couch made into a bed. The front couch made into a bed. And then we'd all go in and go to bed. And in the morning, everybody had to go out and Joe had to put the beds up so that I could fix breakfast and we could eat.
RVB: What did you do after "The Big Trip"?
JOE: Vicki became the career person. Having worked in the school district for so long, she had some opportunities available to her.
VICKI: Yes, I came back to the (Fountain Valley) school district. I worked there for several years, and I ultimately wound up going to work for a company that was beginning to work with my school district and others on self-funded insurance. So I was the career person. And Joe was selling real estate.
JOE: I sold real estate for Coldwell Banker until interest rates reached 20%. Then, I did security work also as a consultant for financial institutions.
VICKI: And I started my own insurance consulting business as a private consultant to school districts. And that was when Joe decided that we were going to set this goal that we were going to retire when he turned 50. We would get our calendars at the end of the year, or the beginning of the year, and just block off the spring and fall for our travels. And as consultants, we could just fill in the rest of the time.
JOE: It was also at a time when we never thought of making reservations anywhere. You went somewhere in the middle of the summer. You could alwavs get some sites somewhere. It was just kind of a neat way of doing things.
RVB: What RVs were you utilizing during this period?
JOE: We went from the Shasta to a temperamental, 3-year-old '78 Monaco Class C that we called Daisy. She was part of the adventure. We drove that motorhome all over the United States. Went to Alaska in it. And in 1989 - that's when I turned 50 - we bought a Fleetwood Bounder Class A motorhome. And we just pulled the plug. We left. We left everything we were doing and quote, retired. And we couldn't afford It. It wasn't like we had a big money backup. At first we went out and we worked for Tracks to Adventure in Mexico and Alaska.
RVB: Were you wagonmasters?
JOE: Yeah, That's a long hard day, seven days a week. And an Alaska trip was 52 days then. And towards the end of the trip, why, you became psychologist, marriage counselor, you know, a whole bunch of things.
RVB: And here you thought your life was over at 32.
JOE: And it was also in '89 when we first started teaching: classes. There's a local community college here, Golden West College. And it's a long story about how it happened. But we ended up, at the urging of this lady who ran the program, teaching a class in how to choose an RV. It was three hours.
VICKI: We-thought it was crazy. We thought couples weren't going to pay $60 tor this three-hour class, but they did.
JOE: The first class sold out. And on the reviews that we got on it, not only were they very good, but people said, "Now that we know how to buy one, how do you make these things work?" So the next program was one that we called "RVing Made Easy." And we talked to people about propane, electrical and water systems, hookups, finding a campground, dumping holding tanks - just kind of the very essential basics. And that led to "Where do you go?" And we ended up with six different classes and 16 different community colleges and adult education schools throughout Southern California.
Then, the management of Traveland RV (in Irvine) heard about our classes and asked us if we would do seminars at one of their promotional gigs down at their dealership. Our first seminar was done under the trees with ducks walking around and quacking and a rooster sitting under the benches crowing - not very good conditions. But we had 30 people sitting there at a time. And it turned out that that was on one Sunday.
And the next Sunday we did it again. And it turned out that his public relations people were the same people who did public relations for the Pomona RV Show, and they asked us if we would do seminars at the Pomona RV Show. And we did shows there. And Gary LaBella (Recreation Vehicle Industry Association vice president of public relations and advertising) was at one of those. And he then asked us if we would like to be spokespeople for RVIA.
VICKI: That would have been about 1991, We just fell into all of this stuff.
JOE: We fell backwards. Everything we've done, none of it was by plan or design. We fell backwards through the door of opportunity. Gary (LaBella) put out a blurb to all the show promoters, telling them about us, that we did a good job, and here's how to contact us. And so we had two or three people contact us, and we suddenly realized that we made more money in one day doing seminars than we did in a whole week doing classes at a school.
VICKI: So guess where the thrust is?
JOE: So that's how we got involved in this thing. And when Gaylord Maxwell started Life on Wheels, when he was still putting the process together, he asked us if we would participate. And so we committed to that because we like teaching. So what we've ended up with is that we are seminar speakers and, in reality, RVing instructors, similar to flying or diving instructors.
RVB: Focused on consumers, right?
JOE: The consumer is our audience, but our customer is the show promoter. And the only reason he's our customer is because, while we are providing what we consider practical information to the audience, we are also creating some enthusiasm and desire in the minds of those folks. And we established ourselves out there to where people want to do what we do. Our enthusiasm's contagious. It s genuine enthusiasm. And (in) our seminars, (like our) "Choosing an RV" seminar, we don't tell people that they should go this way or that way. We advise them to find RVs that satisfy their interests. We give them things to think about and information about floorplans.
VICKI: But we don't talk brands at all. We don't even tell the promoters what brand we have. There's a couple of reasons for that. What's right for us isn't necessarily what's right for them. People look at us as the experts and they think, "Oh, you have this brand. I'll go out and get one just like you." And, of course, that doesn't mean it's going to be right for them. We're also very aware of the fact that the promoter of that RV show is our customer. He's the one that's paying us. He's got RV dealers there representing all different brands. If we told people what brand we were in, whoever's there selling the Country Coaches would probably take us out for a steak dinner that night. And the others would probably get together and vote never to have us come back again. People seem to understand.
RVB: So, you have good relations with the recreational vehicle industry in general?
VICKI: The dealers, the salesmen at the RV shows, they saw us as a threat the first few years we did this. They would take off their nametags and come sit in the audience because everyone wanted to know: Are we going to talk about motorhomes being better than trailers or vice versa? What are we going to say about brands? They thought that we were going to scare people off from their brand. And now, it's just amazing what's happened. Now at the RV shows, the salespeople, the dealers, all know us. Thev say, "Hi. We're so glad you came back this year." They send people to our seminars.
JOE: Like one dealer told us, "I always know who's gone through your seminar." He says, "First of all, they're nice enough to get out of their shoes. And they step into the shower and wiggle around in there. And so they know to do that." And then we give them questions to ask the dealer, the salesman. He should be able to tell by the way they're behaving that they're interested, that they're asking questions. That gives him the opportunity to start establishing a relationship. So while we're giving the consumer what we think is good Information that's going to be helpful to them, we're also stimulating desire and generating enthusiasm in the minds of present and prospective RVers.
RVB: Generally speaking, looking at manufacturers and suppliers, what do you think the RV industry is doing right?
JOE: I think one thing they have finally started doing right is paying attention to the weight limitations. They're starting to pay attention to the fact that they've got to put enough power and enough chassis underneath that thing so that people can put 1,500 pounds of stuff in that motorhome, if you will. Whereas before, when you look at the microminis that were out there for a long time, as soon as the driver got behind the wheel it was overweight. Nobody paid attention to that. The result was that all these axles broke down and they had recalls. And that didn't do anybody any good. It certainly didn't retain that RVer who was out there, enthusiastically starting out, to have his RV fall apart. So that's one important thing.
RVB: Where, in your opinion, is there the greatest room for Improvement?
VICKI: The quality of their product. It's unfortunate because we're also the sounding board for a lot or people at seminars and because of our columns, too. We hear so many really sad stories about rigs that people have bought. And they have nothing but trouble with (them). And they'll tell us how they've been to the dealer 12 different times to get it fixed and how, when they get it back, it's worse than it was before. And we hear from some people where the manufacturers are not standing behind their product like they should. And we both just hate to hear things like that.
RVB: Is this situation getting better or worse?
JOE: I don't really know. But with the introduction of the Internet, there's a lot more knowledge about it going on. With the anecdotal exchange out there, if somebody isn't being treated right, thev let the world know it. Thev also let them know it when somebody treats them well.
But I think, in some respects, maybe the manufacturers and a lot of the dealers really aren't in touch with their customers. I think that they're providing a lot of gadgets and things on these RVs. And I know that an RV is built to sell. So they're doing that. And they're doing a good job of it. But all those gadgets and gimmicks haven't been perfected yet. They don't have two or three years of history to them and they break down. And, sometimes, there's nobody out there who can fix them.
But if the manufacturers worked harder at perfecting what they have, instead of coming up with a new gizmo, I think that, in the long run, they would develop that thing of quality, you know?
RVB: You've developed some strong opinions.
JOE: Yes, this is harsh criticism. And it doesn't apply to all manufacturers. But you've got a product now that has 10,000 moving parts. And if it's 95% perfect, you've still got 500 parts getting ready to break down on you out there. Now, today's consumer doesn't have any patience for this. I was raised in an age where we accepted the fact that cars broke down. They had flat tires. You had to fix them. You had to get underneath and get dirty. But today's kids don't. They don't go for that. They expect to get behind the wheel of that Beemer, turn the key and that engines going to turn over every time. And they don't have any tolerance for the stuff that doesn't work like that.
RVB: What about on the campground side of the industry. Do you see them being responsive to consumers?
VICKI: I think they're working hard, most of them, with trying to keep up with today's 50-amp requirements, the fact that just about everybody has a slideout and how are you going to make room for that slideout? That's got to be a monumental problem for the campgrounds. I think the majority of them deserve a lot of credit. They're recognizing how important it is for people to be able to go online and do their e-mail. I don't think we'll ever see a preponderance of campgrounds with the telephone hookup at the site. There are some out there. It's a nice treat for us to actually have a telephone hookup at the site. I don't think that's necessary as long as there's a telephone jack in the laundry room, the office, someplace, where people can take their laptop and plug them in and get their e-mail. And that's been kind of a struggle for the campgrounds. I don't think that they really thought that requirement, that need, was going to be here to stay.
JOE: And you probably recognize that between the campground owners and the manufacturers,the tail's trying to wag the dog. But they can't decide who's the dog. Should the manufacturer try to build an RV that will fit into the campsite? Or is the campground owner supposed to be building a campsite that will accommodate that rig? So they have problems there. The campground owners are dealing with a different breed of cat these days, too. That same person who has a very low tolerance level for poor quality of workmanship on that rig also is not all that thrilled about going into a campground that's all dirt, that has chuckholes in it. They want a nice paved site or gravel or whatever.
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