Sole_Source_Letter-Roadtrip_Nation-City_of_Tampa_6.11.25.pdf

June 11, 2025

To Whom It May Concern:

Roadtrip Nation (RTN) is an Emmy Award winning media/workforce development organization, whose mission is to empower individuals to define their own roads in life.

Roadtrip Nation’s Film Production Model: Every year, RTN selects specific industries, geographic regions and/or socially relevant issues as themes for a select number Roadtrip Nation production projects. These themes all focus on the individualized, non-linear path that each person takes to find success in career and life, humanizing the process of education and career exploration. Past themes include those listed below, among many others:

● Tech Entrepreneurship

● Accounting & Auditing Industry

● Future of Work in the State of Indiana

● Skilled Trades

● Women in Science

● First-Gen College Students

● Veterans Returning from Service

Elements of the Roadtrip Nation Film Production Model include:

● Roadtripper Recruitment and Selection

○ RTN works with thought partners to identify the ideal background and personas of the individuals who will conduct the interviews (roadtrippers). Through promotion across partner networks, roadtrippers are selected to conduct the filmed interviews. In most cases, the individuals are young adults, 16-24, with an interest in learning more about the education, career and life options available to them within that particular theme, though any individual at a career pivot point can bring the relevant psychographics to the project.

● Roadtripper Training

○ RTN’s Education and Production teams partner to train the roadtrippers on the interviewing skills most helpful to the experience, ensuring the interview is focused and impactful for their own individual interests. This personalized approach ensures an authenticity in the final videos assets, necessary for

Roadtrip Nation | 1626 Placentia Avenue, Costa Mesa, CA 92627 | 949.764.9121 https://roadtripnation.com/roadtrip/tech-entrepreneurs-documentary https://roadtripnation.com/roadtrip/audit-documentary https://roadtripnation.com/roadtrip/indiana-documentary https://roadtripnation.com/roadtrip/skills-forward-documentary https://roadtripnation.com/roadtrip/women-in-stem-documentary https://roadtripnation.com/roadtrip/beating-the-odds-documentary https://roadtripnation.com/roadtrip/operation-roadtrip-documentary successful adoption of the content across RTN’s distribution partner organizations referenced below.

● Leader Selection

○ RTN works with thought partners to identify the individuals to be interviewed, focusing on a balance across geographic, industry and demographic needs, both for RTN’s network and for the target audiences of its partner organizations.

● Content Production

○ RTN’s production team manages all aspects of the project, whether conducted in person or virtually, and all post-production is managed by RTN to ensure the final assets are as impactful as possible. Final assets may include both short and long-form videos, produced for online, television and classroom purposes.

○ RTN executes a process that selects roadtrippers and leaders who represent a collection of backgrounds that match the communities we seek to serve.

● Content Distribution

○ Content from each project is made available to partners for use across their educational and marketing channels, as well as through a variety of RTN channels. RTN’s education partnerships ensure that content is made available to 14 million students annually, in addition to its public television reach.

■ Public Television – Full-length documentary projects are released to public television stations nationally, with each project reaching 40-60 million households, based on RTN’s 15+ seasons of broadcasts.

■ Naviance – Half of America’s high school guidance counselors have access to RTN content through their Career Exploration platform.

■ Boys & Girls Clubs of America – All 4,000+ Clubs, reaching over 4 million young people annually, have access to the video assets produced from each project.

■ Workforce Development Boards – Workforce Development Boards (WDB) nationwide are tasked both with helping individuals find work, as well as partnering locally with K12, Higher Ed, Corporate, NGO and other community partners. Roadtrip Nation partners with WDB’s across the country (Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Wichita, etc.), each of which have access to select content from each project.

By showcasing the stories of successful professionals who have built careers that align with their interests, Roadtrip Nation projects help students visualize how they can do the same.

Roadtrip Nation’s Interview Archive: As mentioned above, each production project created using the Film Production Model creates both long-form (documentary-style) content and short-form content (30-120 seconds). The short-form videos are excerpts from the interviews of leaders talking about overcoming challenges and celebrating personal triumphs that are rarely

Roadtrip Nation | 1626 Placentia Avenue, Costa Mesa, CA 92627 | 949.764.9121 highlighted in a resume or a LinkedIn profile. Topics include the importance of leveraging mentors, overcoming financial hurdles, dealing with imposter syndrome and many other real life topics that are core to both life and career development.

The short-form videos from each project feed into the Roadtrip Nation Interview Archive, which is made up of over 12,000 videos, with an additional 1,000 videos added annually. Each video is tagged with a series of themes and interests, as well as matched with O*NET and Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) codes that align with the leader’s (interviewee’s) career.

Users are then able to navigate the Interview Archive using personal assessment tools that have been developed by Roadtrip Nation and/or text search that pulls directly from the interview’s closed captioned file.

Roadtrip Nation’s Film Production Model and Interview Archive are unique services provided by Roadtrip Nation, all with a focus on amplifying youth voice. Roadtrip Nation is the sole producer and supplier of its Film Production Model in the United States and internationally, as well as the sole producer and supplier of the Interview Archive.

If you have any additional questions regarding this letter, please contact us at (949) 764-9121.

Sincerely, Mike Marriner President, Co-Founder

Roadtrip Nation | 1626 Placentia Avenue, Costa Mesa, CA 92627 | 949.764.9121