Lisa Carletti – Raising awareness and playing the match game in the RV industry
Lisa and Jason Carletti
The RV industry has seen a major boom over the past several years and the importance of RV inspections is becoming more and more mainstream.
RVWA member Lisa Carletti and her husband Jason operate My RV Inspection, a thriving RV inspection business, based in Tampa, Fla., and have been answering the call for customers from all across the United States since 2017.
In July 2021, the Carlettis achieved the highest merit and became the nation’s only Master Certified RV Inspector team, performing close to 200 unbiased, independent inspections annually.
Responding to the customer’s inquiries, the Carlettis have created the premier online directory of RV service providers all over the continental U.S. (including Alaska and a growing number in Canada).
“We’re trying to match up RV enthusiasts with the RV service providers,” Lisa Carletti said. “After we do inspections, customers always ask, ‘Where can I get my RV repaired?’ or ‘Where can I find RV storage facilities?’ or ‘Where can I get RV towing or RV transport?’ We thought…somebody should build a directory like the Yellow Pages for RV services. Nobody was doing what we were envisioning so fast forward two years, and that’s exactly what we’ve done.”
Carletti said she knows mobile RV technicians and other small RV business owners often are far too busy to build their own websites or deal with posting consistently on social media but RV enthusiasts need a way to find them. So, MyRVResource.com provides a landing page for RV service pros (like a mini-website) to help RV enthusiasts find and get in contact with the RV service pros they need.
“Another benefit of becoming a member of MyRVResource.com is social media sharing. It’s getting the RV service provider in front of the RV enthusiasts, where they are, whether that’s Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest or LinkedIn,” said Carletti.
Being in service was not in the plans for Carletti when she first met her husband. She worked in the health-care industry for 25 years, the last five as a traveling Certified Surgical Technologist.
Jason was growing restless on the road so Lisa suggested he become certified through the National RV Inspectors Association and begin a new career.
“He got certified at the beginning of August 2017 and by the end of September, Hurricane Irma hit the Florida Keys and he was called upon because we were based in Tampa,” she said. “He went, and the team inspected several hundred RVs in roughly two months. I was able to go down on the weekends and help them do that. Then we went on another FEMA project at the end of 2018 after Hurricane Florence where Jason did RV repair and I performed RV inspections.”
So many opportunities were created by Irma, that Lisa also decided to become certified in January 2018, and by July 2021 they became the first married couple serving as master certified RV inspectors and she is the first female master certified RV inspector.
“I love the flexibility running our own RV businesses gives us. I love that I was able to get out of healthcare and stop working for somebody else so that I can work for myself,” she said. “It’s freedom! Right now we’re based in Tampa but we’re hoping to get back out there and travel. MyRVResource.com is going to help us do just that.”
Although the economy may be slowing down, Carletti said she doesn’t see the RV industry slowing in the future.
“People have become so accustomed to working remotely and not having a lot of in-person contact that they have transitioned to the new way of life,” said Carletti.
She said anybody interested in a career in the RV industry likewise shouldn’t be afraid of the transition.
“We weren’t sure if it was going to work, but we hit the ground running. There’s space for everybody,” she said.
For women interested in the RV industry as a career, she said she hopes she can be something of an example.
She never imagined leaving health care, but instead jokes that she thought she would be working in an operating room with a surgeon while holding onto a walker in her old age.
“There are a lot of strong women I know who push the barriers and just go for it,” she said. To those women, I say ‘Kudos,’ To others who are less likely to challenge themselves, everybody can learn and it’s never too late. If you think it’s time, you should just do it. There’s so much opportunity there for us to learn and grow together, I think you will be amazed.”
For more information, send Lisa a message at lisa@myrvresource.com or visit https://myrvresource.com.