Valve Magazine - Summer 2008

EDUCATION & TRAINING

Valve Education: It’s Our Job

WOULD YOU WANT TO BE DRIVING DOWN A BUSY INTERSTATE

highway knowing that

BY GREG

_J_OHNSONmany of the newer drivers around you have had no

drivers’ training? How about working in a modern oil refinery surrounded by recent hires that don’t even know the basics about valves and what they do? Both of those scenarios are scary, but those of us in the valve industry can at least work to prevent the latter scenario from happening.

The problem is everywhere in the valve industry—from manufacturer’s representatives to distributors to end-user engineers. Many manufacturers have excellent training programs that cover products they produce, but newer industry professionals often lack the overall basic valve knowledge— knowledge that used to be passed down through long mentorships with older workers. Today, many of those older workers are either over their heads in workload or too focused on the end zone of retirement to train the “new guys.” On the user side, you find many new engineers—their alumni decals still damp—who are unit managers or project engineers in plants surrounded by hundreds or thousands of critical valves and control elements.

The huge storehouse of intellectual capital now residing in the minds of the 50- and 60-somethings needs to be captured before those hard drives are reformatted with golf handicaps or fly fishing knots.

retirements. Members of VMA’s Education & Training Committee are now working on the first of several proposed basic valve courses with the target date for the first VMA educational product being the first quarter of 2009.

Although VMA produced a series of educational presentations in years past (think videos and slide shows), those presentations are in need of major revamping to be useful training tools for the 21st century. Committee members have begun the task of wordsmithing the original text from the old “Valve 101” slide presentation (used in 1990s), adding new material as necessary.

industry. Here are some simple ideas:

Catalog all your little bits of valve information, application

VMA Launches Education Initiative This is why the Valve Manufacturers Association, with the help of a group of concerned volunteers from member companies belonging to the association, are working overtime to prepare a basic valve curriculum that will help educate new workers in the industry and stem the outgoing tide of valve knowledge that goes hand-in-hand with the huge number of baby boomer

Be Part of the Solution

The huge storehouse of intellectual capital now residing in the minds of the 50- and 60-somethings needs to be captured before those hard drives are reformatted with golf handicaps or fly fishing knots. It would be great if we could just hold our heads next to the computer and press Control “C” to copy all that knowledge for everyone else; unfortunately, it takes time and effort.

Even if you don’t have time to write your valve memoirs in book form, there are things you can do to keep that valuable knowledge from disappearing from both your company and your

VMA Education & Training Committee Greg Johnson, Chairman President, United Valve Arie Bregman General Manager, DFT Inc. Leon Brooks Director Sales for Distributed Valves, Cameron Valves & Measurement Dave Ewers Director, Global Technical & Customer Training, Flowserve Corp. Ed Holtgraver CEO, QTRCO Inc. Glen Menendez Inside Sales Manager, Rotork Controls, Inc. Bill Patrick Regional Manager – Western Canada, Velan Valve Inc. Paul Souza Training Liaison, AUMA Actuators W. M. Travis Consolidated Valve Training Manager, Dresser Consolidated For more information on VMA’s Education & Training initiative, email Judy Tibbs at jtibbs@vma.org.