Member Spotlight: Coach-Net’s Director of Technical Services Lacey Pintado

Lacey Pintado is always looking for ways to keep learning. First starting with Coach-Net at age 16, where she worked as a dispatch agent, she now leads their in-house RV technician team as the Director of Technical Services.

Her team takes phone calls from customers who may be stranded on the side of the road or who may have issues when one of their RV components are not operating correctly, whether it be their slide-outs or their refrigerator. She and her team try and diagnose the issue over the phone and help walk the customer through fixing the issue. This, in many cases, helps to avoid having to take the RV into service and alleviating any unnecessary expenses on the part of the RVer.

Alongside these responsibilities, Lacey is also a member of the RV Technical Institute’s new Curriculum Committee, which approves changes to curriculum standards and curriculum content, as well as recommends certification passing scores to the Certification Commission. Everyone on the committee is an RVTI Level 4 certified technician, including Lacey. This is only one of her many impressive accomplishments; others include being a Certified RV Service Writer/Advisor, Spartan Technical Training, Winnebago Industries Service Training, and Airstream Factory Technician Training.

With all of these incredible achievements, it’s no surprise that Lacey was recognized by RV Pro Magazine as one of the RV industry’s 40 Under 40. This prestigious award is designed to recognize up-and-coming leaders from all across the RV industry. Candidates are nominated by co-workers and over 120 nominations were received.

Continuous learning and growing is very important to Lacey. As technologies advance and RVs change, it’s imperative that Lacey and her team always stay educated. She and her team continually attend manufacturer trainings on different RV components and host manufacturer-led trainings at the Coach-Net office.

Lacey is an incredible leader. She continually demonstrates her ability to encourage and motivate others while using her profound RV knowledge to work collaboratively with her team and problem solve. With the onset of COVID, the RV industry has seen unprecedented growth. With more RVs on the road and more road trips being taken, RV roadside assistance has also increased in demand. Lacey’s department of RV technicians have been in high demand, and she had to move quickly to grow her team and ensure everyone is certified and qualified to answer questions from travelers and to troubleshoot RV issues they may have on the road.

She maneuvered her team and adjusted to the growth by coordinating on-demand training that she leads herself, continuously adapting to meet the daily demands of the number of calls coming in and ensuring her team has the most up-to-date information on different RV components in order to best serve the customer. For example, she recently organized a training session with Lippert Components. Their trainer came to the Coach-Net office and provided a 2-day session for her staff that included information on jacks, slides, awnings, and axles/suspension.

Lacey also started an “RV Core” team. This gives dispatch agents a glimpse into the world of the RV tech to see if they would be interested in pursuing certifications to become an RVTI-certified tech. This team followed an advanced RV training curriculum that Lacey developed. Four of Coach-Net’s current RV tech team members became technicians due to this program that Lacey started.

In addition to her leading roles at Coach Net and her upcoming responsibilities on the RV Technical Institute’s Curriculum Committee, Lacey is also a member of the RV Women’s Alliance. There are not many women RV technicians in the RV industry, but Lacey encourages women who want to become RV technicians and she currently has two other women on her RV technician staff. She continually inspires and sets an amazing example of hard work and a strong work ethic that goes beyond her team of RV technicians to the entire Coach-Net family.

Finally, Lacey not only lives and breathes RV at work, she and her husband, Jeff, own a fifth wheel and go camping with their daughter, Zoey, quite often. They are avid RVers and have even had to perform few repairs on their fifth wheel, putting their knowledge of RVs to work outside of office hours.