Successful Valves 201 course kicks off 2021 training offerings
The subject matter of the year’s first training course was simple: all things valves. Eight individuals — comprised of four George E. Booth Co., Inc. engineers and four incoming customers — participated in the Valves 201 class, a two-day follow-up course to the introductory Valves 101, which several of those in attendance had recently taken in December.
Wednesday and Thursday’s class, taught by George E. Booth Co., Inc. Indiana area sales manager Jon Holmes, ran the gamut on topics related to the implementation, maintenance and application of various valve types. Attendees were able to gain valuable information and training in a safely-spaced, socially-distant environment.
“The 201-level class does some light review on the 101 class, we get into a little bit more specifics about applications, where we would use some of these valves,” Holmes said. “I emphasize stories from what I’ve seen in the field, and we go through applications.”
George E. Booth Co, Inc.’s courses are “brand-agnostic.” As such, Valves 201 isn’t a sales pitch on a specific brand or model, it’s a full-scale explainer on valves themselves, regardless of the supplier or suppliers in use.
“It’s more about getting the general information,” Holmes added. “It’s like learning arithmetic. There are no maybes; this is what it is.”
With a focused student-to-teacher ratio, courses like Valves 201 are able to be dynamic in nature.
According to Holmes, the early February class — as is the case with all such courses — wasn’t a dry lecture at all; it wasn’t “all from the book.” There’s a give-and-take involved, one that allows the students in attendance to glean information that not only covers the full overview of the topic at hand, but also zeroes in on how it can be applied in their own industries or roles.
“That’s one of the first things we go through, ‘What’s your job function? What do you want to see?’” Holmes said. “Really, it’s just a matter of tailoring it to what they bring. I’ll try to at least throw in a couple examples of what they’re looking for in there, even if we don’t have it built into the curriculum.”
“The more the people taking the class are engaged, the more they’re going to retain,” he added. “The more give-and-take you have, the better.”
But it’s not all about discussion or X’s and O’s; in fact, Holmes described the class as being about 40 percent hands-on. A significant amount of the teaching happens in George E. Booth Co., Inc.’s classroom space, but those in attendance are also able to spend plenty of time putting the course material into tangible action.
On George E. Booth Co., Inc.’s state-of-the-art Process Training Unit, Holmes and the course’s students had the opportunity to go through the process from start to finish with both on/off and control valves and see firsthand the ins and outs of valve setup, tear-down and repair.
“We pull the pieces apart, they can see how to repair them, we put them back together,” Holmes said. “There’s a few different brands, so they can see the differences in the design of each of the valves.”
Wednesday and Thursday were just the start of a laundry list of informative courses schedule set to take place at George E. Booth Co., Inc’s Romeoville location, including another three iterations of the Valves 101 and 201 classes currently planned for May, August and December.
“We want everybody to be as trained and as ready as possible,” Holmes said. “Proper training is the most important thing for your long-term success in any role. If you’re trained, the odds of you doing your job better -- of succeeding in doing a task -- they go up dramatically. So, it’s extremely important.”