Q&A With RV Industry Association President Craig Kirby – From Challenges Faced In 2020 To Priorities In 2021

Craig Kirby has spent a quarter century serving RVIA members as senior vice president of government relations and general counsel. As 2019 dawned and RVIA’s former president unexpectedly departed the association, Kirby found himself being tapped by RVIA’s board of directors to take the helm as interim president in May 2019.

Within five months, he was permanently installed. Kirby said that while Washington, D.C. lawyers rarely remain with the same association for such a lengthy period, the RV industry’s members have become such valuable friends, he cannot see serving a better group of people.

“I’ve been asked what made you stay in the industry for as long as I have; my 26 years is not that long in this industry,” he said, “but for someone to remain with a trade association in D.C. for 26 years is a rare occurrence.

“It’s the people. The people are what make this industry great,” he said/ “It’s a fun industry. It’s interesting work. What it comes down to is I work with a great team at the association and I enjoy my time with the members. They’re all good people, and it makes work more fun.”

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RV News
What are some top initiatives RVIA is looking to push in 2021?

Craig Kirby
With the pandemic, we couldn’t spend as much time on taking the next steps with repair event cycle times. That is something that we’re going to work with our dealer partners on. Gary Enyart, our former chairman, leads this effort. I think we need to work as an industry to make sure we’re doing all we can to take care of new first timers entering the industry. That’s a priority.

Last year, we eliminated the trade show. I think that was something the supplier segment of the membership valued. We are going to work hard to make sure that we’re providing as much value to suppliers as possible. That is going to be a top priority of the supplier committee – to make recommendations to the board on how we can provide more value to suppliers. One area we are focusing on is developing more data beneficial for suppliers. Those are the goals for next year.

Check out the complete Q&A between Kirby and RV News here. (page 44)