If you take a look at our Course Catalog, you'll notice that we have some seriously long titles on a few of our courses. I mean, what about Fundamentals of Contaminant Chemistry and Applications in Subsurface Contaminant Transport and Remediation? There have been many conversations around the office about ways we might cut a few words out of that one. So far, we haven’t had any luck. Although the title is 12 words long, we need every one of them to describe what the course is all about. And it seems to work. That course, or “Chem” as we abbreviate it has been one of the most popular since NWETC began in 1999.

Sometimes we can describe a course in just a couple of words. We do have some pretty simple titles like Aquatics Permitting. Only 2 words says pretty much everything you need to know, right? If you need to know more about federal and state laws surrounding an aquatics/wetland project, that’s the course for you.

But what about Contaminant Vapor Migration and Intrusion? That’s a relatively short and descriptive title-but it says a lot in those 5 words.

I’ll be honest, when I first started working at NWETC almost 2 years ago, I was a little bit overwhelmed with all of the technical-sounding words in many of the course titles. I’d certainly never heard of Certified Erosion and Sediment Control Lead Training, or “CESCL” as we refer to it. I wondered how I was going to be able to help market courses with titles like this. Well, as luck would have it, we’re a training organization, so there were many resources for me to go to in order to learn about all of our offerings.

Back to Contaminant Vapor Migration: It turns out that although the title originally sounded pretty daunting to me, environmental engineers and others are glad we offer it. The course is quickly becoming one of our more in-demand topics. We’re offering it in 6 different places in the next year-which, not-so-coincidentally fits right in with our New Year’s Resolutions.  The next offering of it is in Helena, Montana (this week, actually), and we’re really happy to see the response there. Montana is one of those places where we’ve always held courses, but we’ve received many requests for more options there, so Contaminant Vapor Migration and Intrusion is one of the additional titles we’re bringing there.

So, I guess the lesson here is that titles, though sometimes lengthy, are as long as they need to be. And people really DO appreciate it when we make it more convenient for them to attend a much-needed course.

Let us know by emailing info@nwetc.org what courses you’d like to see in your area, or any other thoughts you have for us.