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Today's Date:
May 14, 2026
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STED Committee Face to Face Meeting- Agenda and Notes
June 28-29, 2016 (WA WSC, Tacoma WA)
Attendees - On Phone -- George Sechen, Mike Ierardi, Jim Kolva, Melinda Chapman
In person - Joe Capesius, Alan Ward, Deb Stoelker, Kevin Richards, Rod Sheets, Ferrell Killion, Jim Cornwall
1.) NEW STED MEMBERS:
- Studies Chief representative
- Greg Clark will retire
- Doug Moyer - VAWV WSC -- called, left message, sent email
- Chris Ellison - MT/WY WSC -- office Supervisor, expressed interest
- 8 yrs with USGS, USAF retiree (SMSGT geodetics). U of WY PhD Rangeland Ecosystems/Ecology. Started in MN, developed large sediment program that required new training for staff. Moved to WY/MT WSC, Studies Chief for QW Section.Relatively new Supervisor (4 years USGS). Supervisor 10-12 years in the Air Force
- Training challenges. Planning of training important. Accurate list of what is available. Training costs always a concern.
- Engage with distance learning (TEL etc)? No experience. Not aware of where to access, but interested. (a common theme, advertising our stuff is a challenge…)
- IDPs? Yes, he discusses with employees annually, at least.
- Military vs USGS - Survey is more experience-based and science-driven, vs safety-driven and ‘set in stone’. Survey more flexible. We do have some issues with succession planning when an expert retires…
- Training vs Workload--Training one of the more important areas, bring that up to your staff--Discuss training and what needs to be done. I need to follow-up and make sure the WSC needs are met when prioritizing training. Driven by funding still. Has to be planned for and part of that discussion.
- Marty Risch - INKY WSC -- Interested at 1 yr increments. No longer a supervisor
- Anne Marie Matherne - NM office -- called, left message -- called in at 9:10 -- Unit Chief for Environmental Geoscience Section, previous study hydrologist, generalist. Worked with Tribes. 80% of NM WSC staff with the survey less 5 years. Training guidelines/plans for incoming employees--unified training for incoming employees
- IDPs, started using a Supervisor, use to help staff develop, important to fund training, use NTC website to ID training, have utilized DL, 10-15 people took the online course last year. Mixed bag of effectiveness.
- Workload vs Training needs---Peer to peer mentoring first line of attack; looking to hold training in-house, to get training to more people quickly.
- Top 3 priorities to work on as STED member? Collectively identified as strong needs in Studies section---create a body of training for incoming employees--when I started it was a haphazard approach.
- Chad Wagner - South Atlantic WSC--called, left message
- Rick Dinicola -- WA-WSC -- interested -- 30 years in Tacoma, studies techs need same basic training that data folks do (integrating data with studies in this office); his goal is cross-training for techs, most hydrologist they hire are PhD’s; not junior level hydrologist-those employees prefer conferences, etc. will only stay for a couple more years probably.
Alan-to Ferrell--
- How can we get distance learning out to the employees better? -- F. ->
- Supervisors need to be aware so they can pass it on. +
- Employees need to be able to find it on their own.
- Needs to be some kind of ‘reward’
- To find it on their own and have initiative.
- Alan -- maybe send a targeted email to supervisor groups (annually or monthly?) that says what STED wants it to say (advertise TEL courses, web pages, etc)
Deb -- web page needs to be relooked at--hard to navigate.
Kevin--NTC/STED Quarterly newsletter to all staff?
- IT representative
- George Sechen moving to Office of Enterprise Information
- Candidates? OWI/office-formerly-known-as-CIDA? Action Item - George will talk to a few candidates and submit names to the Team
- Look for someone involved in ‘big picture’. Need for local IT person reduced in traditional capacity; taking larger role beyond their WSC.
- STED Succession Planning
- Lots of positions will be needing replacements next year(ish)…
- Keep an eye out for potential members, talk to them about it
- Alan - Training ‘wizard’/ Officer in each Center. POC for training. Similar to HydroAcoustics POC. Alan--inform CD’s/Supervisors time requirements---maybe an hour a week--Communication role, POC
- JimC - shotgun approach, try lots of different methods to get the word out (Center directors, Regions, Youtube (can be limited by bandwidth in offices), Trng POCs, website, ‘slack’ channel, ???)
- How do we do it? STED recommends Training Officer. Looking for someone who is excited about training, spend hour/week disseminating information from OED, STED, listservs,
- Action Item: Draft up an Email/memo from Water Senior Staff to Regional Directors encouraging collateral duty Training POC. Specify scope, time commitment, ‘spirit of the job’, guidelines on expectations. Action item: QPR for AD-Water is Aug. 22nd.
- Action Item: Kevin track down retirement-eligible numbers, then send memo to Jerad Bales for distribution to WMA Instructor group
- Action Item: After Jerad distributes memo, put link to it on STED webpage.
2.) Use of DOI Learn for all WMA Training
Utility: permanent record of courses; hard to use for micro classes (i.e., Conferences).
- Update on use of DOI Learn for GW Workshop - use for overall workshop registration, allows for feedback. Alan - KEEP GOOD SIGNUP SHEETS so OED can enter info on individual sub-events after the fact. Alan provides to Rod/Melinda information requirements to enter subcourses into DOI Learn.
- Obstacles to using DOI Learn
- Perceptions
- Reality
- How to overcome resistance to using it?
- Much easier to use if you plan it in advance, and get Melanie Hood to help set up and enter info ahead of time
- Difficult to track training that is not required for all employees such as Safety training. I.e. in-house specialized training such as Chain saw, over and in water, kayak, aed, etc. (putting it in DOI Learn can make it easier)
- Supervisors can use it as a tool to track & record who’s getting training done (or not), provides better accountability for both.
- Training exam during Tech Reviews. Ensure major trainings are completed. Comes up as major recommendation ⅓-½ reviews. Usually related to field work. For SW, recommend training to mitigate a deficiency. John Hoffman compiled major recommendations, could cull for training-related comments.
- Top 3 for DOI Learn 2: robust reporting, less labor intensive, ability to deal with micro events, enhanced evaluations/ custom evals,
- Update on new version of DOI Learn 2: pushing new functionality (How much influence does the USGS have in this revision process JRK)
- New reports to help OED
- I.e., cost of training by org code, etc.
- Needs technical fixes - cross-browser compatibility (FireFox, IE, Chrome, Opera, Safari) needs to be improved so it works on all platforms.
LUNCH
3.) WMA 2016/2017 Training Needs Survey - 4th iteration
- Timeline
- Survey completion - Nov. 30, 2016
- Target date (AD send out memo) of Oct. 1, 2016
- Request for AD Water Memo sent by Sept. 15, 2016
- Validate active/inactive courses - August 2016
- Format of Survey Monkey - July 2016
- Distance Learning as own category?
- Help identify future DL needs<
- Ralph Roland (OED) will set up Survey - Joe
- Provide information on how past survey results have resulted in additional USGS training--2016 example R and Python Training
- Action Item: Joe/Kevin brief WSC Directors about WMA Training Needs Survey (Aug-Sep)
- Audience - Action Item: Alan to create Category 2/4 Supervisors
- Course Scrub --Action item --Review by Technical offices by August
- Changes - email sent to Ralph the updated comments and office list
- Data Consolidation
- Volunteers??
- How to summarize/present?
4.) Instructor/Course Manager Succession (big picture - how to build up an institutional program to pass the training skills/knowledge/materials down to next generation of trainers)
- Guidance
- Use as Employee Development tool?
- Action Item -- Alan W. will pull the list of instructors and provide to the STED so that we might be able to see the magnitude of the potential problem of impending retirements
- >Directly ask Course Coordinators if they have identified a successor.
- Build a pool of candidates for trainers
- Start teaching the candidates how to teach effectively
- Instructor rotation plan
- Separate memo to Senior Water Staff discussing importance of instructor rotation / course coordinator succession plan.
- Emeritus instructorsinsturctors still active
- Percentage of instructors eligible for retirement<
- Well trained instructor pool needed to maintain Agency viability
- ‘Single point of failure’
- Instructor status important career milestone / employee development tool/opportunity
END OF DAY 1
DAY 2:
5.) Vote on Study Chief Candidates
- Action Item: Call Anne Marie and congratulate! .... DONE
6.) Memorandum(s) to Instructors
- Video streaming - great way to receive cost-efficient training. Have tip-sheets to prepare remote students and instructors. Have used Live Streaming, Jim K. SW records computation. Instructor challenges - remember you have remote students as well as live students. Facilities in Reston, DFC, National Water Center. 2 instructors minimum. There is an economy of scale when a Center needs more than say 3 or more trained, helpful to have subject-matter expert present for large groups to minimize frustration.
- Action Items
- National Training Center Scheduling
- Memo to encourage scheduling well in advance of the course. DOI University is scheduling NTC rooms, are being co-located with NTC. DOI-U uses nothing but contract instructors while all USGS instructors are in house. Due to the contracting instructors for DOI-U, they have to schedule a year in advance. So our instructors need to start scheduling early.
- A STED discussion item for our F2F in Tacoma will be announcing all WMA course dates for the following FY by September each year. Part of the driver is the reduced scheduling capacity of the National Training Center due to collocation with DOI-U as well as advance planning serving to reduce course cancellations.
- WMA Training Facilities Database
- How to publish?
- How to get the word out?
LUNCH
7.) WMA Instructor of the Year award
- Modeled after the Excellence in Leadership Award
- Notes from Alan:
What makes a WMA instructor stellar?
For starters and in no particular order:
- Consistently excellent course evaluations from students
- Presentation style
- Course design (based on instructional systems design standards)
- Willingness to pilot and/or embrace alternative delivery techniques to make learning more available (admittedly does not pertain to all courses as we know some do not lend themselves to distance learning)
Important to note the distinction between lead instructors and support instructors. We could also consider a "Support Instructor" of the Year as well as they are reviewed for each class in our system.
Action Item: Send email to Jerad/Bill W. to send out around Oct. 1; nominations close Nov. 30, include nomination form completed by Rod. Version 4.,
Action Item: Rod to complete Long Course form
Action Item: Alan compile list of long courses from DOI Learn.
We could also entertain a category of Short Course Instructor of the year to highlight the importance of that type of learning.
Not sure what the criteria would be for "short."
8.) RFP for Distance Learning Courses
- STED member representing WMA -- Rod volunteers
- Invasive Species -- HDAC, UMESC
- List of available courses: https://www2.usgs.gov/humancapital/ecd/ecd_telavailcourses.html
- >DL RFP Process:A multi-disciplinary USGS panel will review and rank all proposals based on:
- -Suitability of the course for online or blended-learning delivery
- -Estimated need in terms of potential audience
- -Applicability to multiple USGS disciplines
- -Support of integrated science
- -Connection to the USGS Science Strategy
After we receive the panel ratings, we forward the rank order of the proposals to our OED Chief, Stacy Bushée. Stacy then sends the proposals on to the Deputy Directors to:
- 1) increase awareness and investment in the process, and
- 2) request funding for any courses they want to ensure are developed in the next year. We will also look to other funding sources in an attempt to fund as many of the top proposals as possible.
Data management modules developed through STED/OED are available on https://www2.usgs.gov/datamanagement/index.php (right side under HIghlights). They give credit for development for OED.
Action Item - Jim C/Mike - make sure DL courses on data management are highlighted on STED web pages, link from WMA ‘Node’ pages too
https://www2.usgs.gov/datamanagement/index.php
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U.S. Department of the Interior 