Volunteers Collaborate to Update CSAA Online Training

From left: Mary Jo Lakhal, West Safety Services; Caryn Morgan, Bold Technologies;  Laurie Mitchell, Siemens Building Technology; Julie Webber, CSAA;  Kate Brickner, Vivint. Photo by Elizabeth Lasko.

Over three days last week, members of the CSAA Education Committee met at the CSAA office to review and update the CSAA Level One online training course. Updating this course is a high priority for the committee and the association in 2016.

“Education and training is so important to the industry and to every company,” said Laurie Mitchell, Operations Director for Siemens Building Technology, a CSAA Five Diamond-certified company. “Keeping training programs current with technology and other changes is challenging, but critical to the success of our operations.”

Siemens was joined by Kate Brickner, Corporate Trainer, Vivint; Mary Jo Lakhal, Senior Program Manager, West Safety Services; and Caryn Morgan, Operational Excellence Specialist, Bold Technologies, meeting in the Alarm Industry Museum conference room with CSAA Executive Director Jay Hauhn and CSAA Vice President of Education Julie Webber. In addition, Michael Gelvin, Assistant Central Station Manager, United Central Control, participated by phone.

“It was great to gather face-to-face with a group of dedicated subject matter experts from different companies to work on such an important project,” said Lakhal. “We tackled the course module by module to shape the Level One training into a current representation of our industry. It was exciting to incorporate important technology trends in the industry like ASAP to PSAP and IoT.”

“The collaboration over the last few days has been excellent. We really needed to meet in person to get this project done,” continued Mitchell. “The first module took the longest. As we’ve proceeded, we’ve all gotten on the same page, started speaking the same language, and the result is going to be a much-improved training tool for central stations.”

“Without the support of the industry we would not be able to bring together a team of learning professionals to tackle this major revision,” noted Webber. “Their efforts will benefit CSAA members and our industry overall.”

More than 20,000 people in 30+ countries have registered for CSAA Online Training. The new Level One course is planned to launch in May. Watch for updates from CSAA.

Michael Gelvin, United Central Control (pictured below), participated by phone. Photo by Elizabeth Lasko.

Michael Gelvin. Photo courtesy of UCC.