Proactive Outreach for VW Funding
It’s been a few years since we first heard about the Volkswagen Settlement. We’ve been patiently waiting for each of our states’ Environmental Mitigation Trust plans to be finalized to then actually have the opportunity to apply for possible funding. Once state beneficiaries include propane school buses in its plans, and the plans are approved, you must be ready to act.
That’s what happened in Ohio. When the state’s EMT program opened, they gave applicants 30 days to act. This was a short period for Tony Rumer at Cardinal Bus Sales to pull together his sales team and brief them on the funding.
To help his efforts, Tony contacted ROUSH CleanTech and Blue Bird. Together, we created easy-to-use worksheets so that district representatives could simply fill in basic information to apply for the money.
The Cardinal Bus sales team then met with as many school district contacts as possible. The team wanted to make sure that its existing Blue Bird customers were applying for this funding.
To date, this has been the strongest strategy to take advantage of EMT funds.
Because of these efforts, five school districts have applied for the VW funds for propane vehicles in Ohio.
If you’d like help with encouraging your customers to apply for funding, contact Kuba Szczypiorski (Kuba.Szczypiorski@blue-bird.com) or Chelsea Jenkins (Chelsea.Jenkins@roush.com).
