Here in Ohio (like other jurisdictions I suppose) we have state requirements for training contact hours. While I was prepping for a seminar I received an email happily announcing free 6-hr contact hour days and it struck a nerve. Yeah! Even more "free" training... So the process of devaluing training goes in this state. The default contact hour value goes to junk bond status. If the objective is accumulating 12 or so contact hours, why pay for it if you can string together a few booth talk trips here, an ORWA course there? ORWA - the same people bring you free hydrogeology performed by circuit riders. 

The Operator Training Committee of Ohio (OTCO), its instructors, or anyone like us who provide content-rich training put considerable time and resources into developing training courses. Maybe we are extra slow, but we take at least several days to develop one day's training - gathering material, drafting Powerpoint and notes. Assembling notebooks takes time and money, as it does to get a venue, arrange some food and drink, send advertising mailings to people overwhelmed with mail and email, so you waste 90 % of it... The latter items are material costs and our professional time and rather extensive experience presumably have some value. Everyone has a little overhead.

We may as well not bother trying to put on something nice - a retreat, better food, etc. Nobody will pay for it.

We think we have something to offer because no one else in this state explains ground water and well issues, especially their care and improvement, in any depth at all. We started training because it helps the public water system managers to make good choices and decisions. A similar story can be told for other professionals who share their specialized expertise in training. However, we don't have a subsidy from the government to cover costs. Neither really does OTCO, which provides so many other useful services as well.

The focus on time alone in the continuing ed system is another factor. OEPA vets content. However, for the operator, other than making sure one has enough OM hours, one's tush in a chair for a given time is the single metric. At OTCO's spring Water Workshop, I have observed people doing sudoku, texting, sleeping, and talking through entire talks. At the booth talks such as at the Southwest expo presented by the Ohio Section, the pipe guys look at you blankly and fiddle with their cell phones. We cooperate because it at least gets people to look at what we're doing. It is a credit to those who seek quality training, and actually, given this situation, I am profoundly gratified that some people do pay our modest fees and stay awake most of the day in our sessions.

If systems are so poor that they cannot pay for operator training hours, is the problem with the cost of training or their budgeting and revenue management? A system needs to invest in its people. Free hours, wherever they come from, just rewards underinvestment in our people. Why do we so devalue the people who bring us convenient, safe, high-quality water?

The problem is not just with PWS, the registered sanitarian continuing ed system suffers the same symptoms.

Then, what do we do with the boards and utility committees? It is really hard to get them to come to any training, and they make the big money decisions.