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Archives
 July 1999 Issue
Return Path
By Jennifer Whalen
Members Want MSO Leaders To Support Certification
With cable companies aggressively launching a variety of advanced services comes the seemingly obvious need for a trained and certified workforce. Yet, it was clear at the annual membership meeting held at this years Cable-Tec Expo that some members believe the cable industrys leaders could do more to support the Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers certification efforts.
Bob Brandel Jr., with LWS, expressed his concern over the lack of industry support for certification. "Im surprised that the MSOs (multiple system operators) dont push certification more," he said, adding that the industry ought to require that employees be certified by SCTE. "How many installers are out there that dont have a clue about SCTE certification?" he asked.
Roger Hughes, operations engineer with Armstrong Cable Services, echoed that view.
"The technical people cant be certified unless they are supported by upper management," Hughes said. "SCTE needs to pressure MSO leadership to require certification of technicians&. If management supports it, youll see more involvement in certification and involvement in the SCTE in general."
Hughes added that in light of the consolidation of the industry and the shrinking number of MSOs, such involvement is critical. "If the support is not there, some of these chapters will fold," he said. "If the MSOs dont give their support, people wont be coming to the meetings, and we wont be able to survive."
Steve Allen, western regional sales engineer for JCA Technology Group, agreed the industry can do more to support certification, but felt the problem was more at the local system manager level.
"Most CTOs (chief technical officers) fully support certification. Where it tends to fall apart is at the local level," Allen said. He added that training costs and lost man-hours for training frequently are not factored into system budgets. By focusing only on the bottom line, money and time for training gets forgotten.
"Once competition is here and prevalent, and people start walking away to the competition, which has highly trained personnel, then youll see support for certification," Allen added.
"In some places, theres the feeling, If these guys can install wires, thats all they need to do. Thats absolutely wrong, especially as we move to digital," Allen said in a follow-up interview.
"A knowledgeable workforce is critical to the successful launch of these products," Allen continued. "Theres too much money at risk. People are paying a lot more money and demanding a lot more."
Society attacks certification
Certification is a key theme in SCTEs celebration of its 30th anniversary. "To build certification will require two elements: One, greater allocation of resources, and two, greater awareness building of its benefits. Step one occurred with SCTE hiring its first director of certification, Gary Selwitz," said John Clark, SCTEs president.
"Clearly, wishing alone will not make it so. Weve taken the tangible step of hiring a director of certification, so we will have a full-time staff person devoted to improving and upgrading our certification program. Parallel with that, we will devote greater awareness building resources to both members and nonmembers concerning the benefits of certification," Clark explained.
"Our members already do a good job of promoting certification. The piece that needs to be filled is SCTEs role in making the industry overall more aware of certifications benefits. We will attack the challenge from different directions, but both with the same goal," he added.
SCTE also seeks support from MSOs through visits with leaders and by encouraging participation in events such as Cable-Tec Expos Annual Engineering Conference, which features panels composed of both chief executive officers and chief technical officers.
In addition, chapter officers are encouraged to visit the MSOs in their region to promote certification.
Approaches to training
Members also raised questions about how to develop fresh ideas for chapter meetings to keep engineers interested and coming back. SCTEs Marv Nelson suggested that chapters volunteer to be beta test sites for some of the new training sessions that SCTE is developing.
Other suggestions included watching the SCTE-List to detect hot topics, covering "the basics" during two meetings a year for the new technicians that are joining the chapters, and partnering with neighboring chapters to plan meetings and share speaker ideas. - CT
Jennifer Whalen is editor of "Communications Technology." She can be reached at , ext. 2057, or via e-mail at .
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