Scientific and Technical Employee Development (STED) Conference Call
May 27, 2010
Committee members:

Meeting Introduction

• Bill Hazell opened the teleconference and reviewed the agenda.

Comments on the minutes from the March 2010 teleconference

• No comments were received.

External Communication

• CR Data Conference (May 2010) – Bill presented STED activities to about 300 attendees.
• NRP gathering (May 2010) – Harry is scheduled to present during the time of this teleconference.
• National WQ & OWQ Conference (April 2010) – Franceska to provide QW Principles demo. We look forward to Franceska updating us on these and other presentations during the July teleconference.

Development of Web Page – Mike Ierardi

• Bill welcomed Mike Ierardi to the committee as the official STED Webmaster.
• Mike asked several questions of the committee concerning what was expected from our web page
• Where housed?
• Mike suggested moving to NATWeb.
• Key features that we desired?
• Bob reinforced STED’s desire to be the starting point for training needs
• ACTION ITEM – Mike Nolan, Lynn, Barb, and Bob will work with Mike Ierardi as a task force to develop the web page and report back to the committee.

FY2010 HR Initiative Proposal Status – Alan
  Nine courses funded for FY10

• Water Quality Principles. Franceska Wilde
• Procedures for Running Gaging Station Levels, Mike Nolan
• Sediment Computation, Francisco Simoes
• Communications Foundation, Leslie Gordon
• Monte Carlo Methods for Earth Science Research, Greg Granato
• Refresher for Defense Against Wild Animals, Suzanna Carrithers
• Animal Awareness in the Southeast, Chris Leeth
• The USGS Library – Find, Get, and Use, Emily Wilde
• MOCC, Gary Hill

Training Needs Survey – Alan

• Ready to go – Alan will resend to Steve to determine the timing of delivery.

QW Principles TEL course update

• Planned delivery end of FY10
• Need to determine best way to serve course.

SW Policy and Procedures TEL course update – Mike

• Idaho personnel will be the initial users
• Course to be served off Breeze server

Essential and Recommended / Core Courses – Mike, Dave, Franceska

• This list is being updated throughout OGW and should be posted in 1-2 weeks on OGW Web page.
• Need to consider “crossover people”. Those doing interdisciplinary work that may require different needs.

Regional Co-op Education – Bill

• A group of nine people with interest and experience in this field met at the CR Data Conference in May to discuss this issue. This group included personnel from WR, CR, ER, and OSW.
• ACTION ITEM – This group will be commissioned to address this topic and report to STED.
• Bill and Joyce will act as Liaisons between this Commission and STED

The next conference call is scheduled for Thursday, July 29 at 1:00 pm EDT.