STED Committee Teleconference
Conference Call Agenda and Notes
Thursday January 27, 2011
(1:00-3:00 pm Eastern Time)

Notes recorded by Lynn Taylor

Dial-in Logistics   Purpose    Agenda    Attendees    Discussion Notes

Dial-In Logistics

Conference Date:	01/27/2011
Conference Time:	1:00-3:00 pm ET
Bridge Call-in #:	703-648-4848
# of Ports/Lines:	??
Conference Code #:	69180#

Purpose

Attendees List:

Invited-Alan Ward, David Pollock, Dianne Jefferies, Franceska Wilde
Harry Jenter, Joyce Williamson, Mike Nolan, Lynn Taylor, Steve Blanchard, Steve Anthony
Steve Lipscomb, Theresa Lane, Bill Hazell, Mike Ierardi

Attended: Bill Hazell, Lynn Taylor, Steve Lipscomb, Joyce Williamson

Agenda And Discussion Notes

Committee Business Items

• Review minutes of September 2010 meeting
• External communication reports
  • Nothing to report.

Priority Action Items

• Regional Co-op status
• There is a need for other programs like Gateway, AZ: Vermillion, MN: Western Dakota Tech, SD: actively recruiting from these three.
• 13 offices were looking for SCEPs for this summer. 3 tentative offers have been made to place students from Vermillion Community College in MN.
• There was some research done to find out what the student interest is and what jobs are available.
• In South Dakota they had an electronics tech curriculum and were able to simply add a few more courses to give it a more environmental bent.
• Spokane Community College has a strong hydrology program that WA, OR, and ID pull from but there is no official interviewing. (change per Steve).
• The programs all a little different so there has been discussion to see if they can come together and create a more consistent curriculum across the country.
• Steve, Does USGS participate in these courses? Joyce - it varies by school. Rapid city uses USGS gaging stations and sometimes USGS personnel are able to be there as well. But in MN the school is so far from the office there may not be much interaction.
• Bill, do you need more help from STED? Joyce - Not at the moment. In the future might be able to use some help for locating additional colleges on the east coast for recruitment or development of a program.
• Water quality principles

• Francheska did not attend. Nothing new.
• Training Needs Survey
  Alan was not able to make the call so he could not provide a summary to the group. He did send email.
  • Bill does anyone have any comments on Alan's email summary?
    • Steve and Lynn - I looked at the spreadsheets.
      • Steve - what does need vs travel need mean? Need is the number who need a course. Travel need is the number the WSC is willing to send to a course
  Steve add to the secondspread sheet the information for who is willing/able to pay for the course this year.
  • Adding information about what courses are already planned for this year.
  • AI - Bill will talk with Alan about these comments.
• STED web page
  • Action items From December 02, 2011 meeting
    • Barb Kerans will notify the STED when the new web page ready is for additional review. Request feedback within 2-weeks.
    • Bill Hazel will remind each representative from the technical offices on the STED of the need to keep their training web page up-to-date.
    • Lynn Taylor will contact Mike Ierardi for access to post meeting notes. Not completed.
    • New AI - Lynn - contact Mike and see where the web page is. There are things already out of date.
    • We need to get a commitment for the web master. Is this Mike. AI - Bill will write an email to Steve B.
    • The design looks good but we must get the commitment before we go live with it and let everyone know it is available.

Committee rotation

• Bill Hazel and Steve Anthony will rotate off the STED in March 2011.
• New chairperson needed to lead the STED.
• Barbara Kearans has retired - Replacement?
• If STED has any suggestions for replacements they should be made to the discipline offices.
• Action items from December call.
  • Steve Blanchard will work with the “regional water coordinators” to identify candidates to serve as the Hydrologic Technician and Studies Section Chief representative to the STED.
• New action items
  • AI - Bill will contact Steve B. about the replacements needed now and very soon.

Next conference call: The next scheduled call is for March 24, 2011. Scheduled for 1:00-3:00 Eastern Time.
Reston phone bridge 703-648-4848 and code is ?????#

STED Committee Activities – 2011

Current Activities

1. Continue to develop, populate, maintain, and promote the STED web page as the primary source of STED
   communication to WRD personnel.
2. Continue to promote Technology Enabled Learning and establish an electronic learning repository for WRD
   personnel featuring links to a wide variety of instructional and informational material.
3. Promote the development of "Essential and Recommended" training programs for all disciplines, including
   Information Technology, for use by all scientific and technical WRD employees.
4. Future Activities
   Consider the advantages of a regionally based cooperative education program with selected colleges and
   universities as a means to promote training of potential future scientific and technical WRD employees.

Future Activities

1. Continue to develop, populate, maintain, and promote the STED web page as the primary source of STED communication to WRD personnel .
2. Continue to promote Technology Enabled Learning and establish an electronic learning repository for WRD personnel featuring links to a wide variety of instructional and informational material.
3. Investigate opportunities for a WRD advanced scientific education program to meet USGS mission goals and encourage career development.