Training Topics and Training Sites

by Mike Dill

As I find my way around New York, I am meeting new friends and nice people who welcome me to their plants and give one very valuable thing, directions to the next plant. It will take time but I will learn my way around, and sooner or later, I may appear on your doorstep. I have been known to pop up unexpectedly. Take notice, you have been warned. The other thing I keep hearing is about training or the lack of it. Everyone needs training hours to maintain their certification, no question about that, however the availability seems to be hit and miss. From a training providers point of view let me say this, "big state / lots of people." No one provider of training can do it all. The old business of so many hours in a day, so many weeks per year. Training in a state the size of New York is a cooperative effort. Rural Water is doing our part. What we need is help from you. The first way you can help is with training topics. Give us your ideas and subjects that will help make your job easier. That's the idea behind the training, to give you knowledge or a better understanding of a topic or a piece of equipment. Training is an exchange of ideas that benefits everyone. The more you know, the better you perform. The second is training locations, our needs are pretty basic. First we need tables and chairs to seat everyone comfortably and adequate parking. If your local fire hall does Bingo on Tuesday night, that's the place. We carry our own audio-visual equipment, so that is taken care of. The other is probably most important "food". Operators need nourishment; we need coffee in one hand to balance the donut in the other. The basic greed for caffeine and sugar. Sometimes the local fire auxiliary can supply lunch or we can use a caterer from the area. The hotel conference rooms are nice, but not available in all areas. So fire halls, VFW, the Legion, Moose are all good spots for training. Most of these places have very little going on during the day, so usually we can have access most anytime. So, if you are interested in hosting training in your community, give Dave Cole or myself a call and we can drop by and see what you have. Also I would like to mention that if we do say you have a good training site, that doesn't mean we will schedule a session immediately. Generally we schedule sessions a year in advance, so if we visit you in July, it does not mean there will be training in September. It takes time to get around, as I said before, "big state". Help out yourself and your fellow operators, get involved, that's what Rural Water is all about, helping each other for the benefit of all.

See ya - Mike