NFM&T Conference; New Schedule; Pay-For-Skills MPACT on the National Stage Pete and Joel speak at a major conference, and Joel will soon be on National Public Radio again. National Facility Management and Technology Conference, Baltimore This conference is annually the best we have ever attended, and it is free! We recommend it highly. There are many excellent speakers, and the the show has a large variety of well-known vendors. Joel Leonard and Pete Little spoke for the second year in a row at this conference, March 15 - 17. Our topic was Coping With the Maintenance Crisis - the increasing shortage of skilled maintenance technicians. The standing room only audience of 250 maintenance professionals was very receptive, and many of them joined us at our ESPN Zone reception afterward. New Schedule through June Our new schedule, now on our web site, runs through July 1. Check it out. You can enroll online or by e-mailing or calling us. And you can pay online by credit card, or send us a check or purchase order. Pay-For-Skills Workshop - April 14 Those receiving this newsletter are obviously interested in training for your maintenance personnel. At MPACT, we provide what many tell us is the best hands-on maintenance training they have ever seen. We don't, of course, disagree. But there may be a missing link: the attitudes of the people you send. We all know about the horse you lead to water but cannot make drink. The best students we get are those with a thirst for knowledge. These are the ones who dig to learn as much as possible whenever they come. How can you develop that thirst in your employees? We find that the more classes a student attends, the more he or she realizes, "This is really good, not only for the company, but also for me personally!" But how do you get them past the first one or two classes, when some are not yet enthused? We feel that a Pay-For-Skills [PFS} program is your best bet. A PFS program, properly designed, is a win-win situation. The student is rewarded for competence, not just longevity. And the company is rewarded with students who have worked to learn - not just taken a vacation from the plant. So how do you properly design a PFS program? That's the purpose of this workshop. It is designed for a team from each plant participating, including the HR Manager, the Maintenance Manager, and the Plant Manager. [We focus on maintenance employees, but the principles apply for production personnel as well.] By sending a team, the critical parties will all be on the same page. [You're welcome to come without a team, but you will not get as much out of the workshop.] The deliverables include an understanding of the issues, such as, "Should we 'grandfather' existing employees?", and an action plan custom-tailored to your plant. A PFS program can be as simple or as elaborate as you wish. Pete Little leads this workshop. Pete was on the three-person team that developed one of the most successful PFS programs ever, for Burlington Industries: it started in 1983, is still in place, and was the genesis of the MPACT Learning Center. At last count, 3,578 different Burlington employees participated: 18,121 class attendees. Visit Us If you've never been to the Learning Center, call or e-mail us to schedule a visit. You'll find a clean, bright, well-equipped facility with outstanding hands-on training stations You'll enjoy your time with us. Approved Sponsor of Continuing Professional Competency credits for Professional Engineers and Registered Land Surveyors licensed by the State of North Carolina, and Provider of Related Instruction that meets the Approved Apprenticeship Program requirements of the North Carolina Department of Labor. MPACT Learning Center, LLC  The MPACT Advantage