Tough economic times don’t deter trainers

Two wireless training companies have looked this bear market straight in the eyes and decided to go ahead with new business ventures.

“There are two methods of strategy today for CEOs,” said Ken Rapoport, Electronic Environments Corporation (EEC) (www.eecnet.com) CEO. “You’re either laying back and doing nothing, or you’re moving forward aggressively.” Rapoport decided to do the latter.

“What I see given the events of 9-11 and the world’s continuing dependence on wireless, is all the carriers with an enormous need to upgrade their technology,” Rapoport said.

In that vein, EEC started construction this week on a new training center that will provide continuing education to technicians in the telecommunications industry. Wireless trainees will learn about installation, repair and maintenance of wireless infrastructure. The center should be completed early next year.

WK Multimedia Network (WKMN) Training (www.wkmn.com) also is introducing new training programs during this difficult economic time. The company’s new online course, “A Newbie’s Guide to Wireless Networks,” went live Sept. 10. Hindsight, of course, is 20/20.

“We haven’t had the number of sales that we would have like,” said Craig Wiesner, WKMN Training technical and instructional development manager. “But, that’s because there’s been a lot keeping people focused on other things.”

He said companies that had looked the WKMN online training program were giving it rave reviews. That gives him hope for the future despite the sense that wireless companies are cutting back on their training budgets.

“I don’t know if they’re taking training seriously,” Wiesner said. “What they are taking seriously is looking at new ways to get training.”

With travel budgets gone, carriers are looking for alternatives to traditional training seminars.

“Normally, they would do a big road show or fly people in for a class,” Wiesner said. “From a financial standpoint, they can’t do the road shows.”

Wiesner agreed that training that covers more than one area is important when carriers are looking to save money.

“What ours does is it covers the broad range of wireless and shows applications across the board,” he said. “Carriers should be able to talk about all of those technology when they’re trying to provide a solution to their customers.”