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Kirkwood Community College’s Hazardous Materials
Training and Research Institute (HMTRI), located in
Cedar Rapids, Iowa, sponsors the Community and College Consortium
for Health and Safety Training (CCCHST), funded by National Institute
of Environmental Health Sciences Worker Education and Training
Program (WETP) since 1992. CCCHST membership consists of community
colleges partnered with business and industry, universities,
and community-based organizations offering a consistent and quality
response to the national training need for hazardous waste workers
and emergency response personnel. CCCHST is the only NIEHS consortium
dedicated to supporting two-year colleges and their partners
delivering Hazardous Waste Operations and Emergency Response
(HazWOPER) training nationwide.
The goal of CCCHST is to make NIEHS-approved worker training
nationally available with over 100 partners offering hazardous
materials instruction (HazWOPER and related 29CFR 1910.120 training)
in nearly all states of the nation through a Train-the-Trainer
model program. CCCHST instructors, prepared and supported by HMTRI,
annually train a minimum 20,000 students, workers, and supervisors
to protect themselves and their communities from exposure to hazardous
materials encountered during hazardous waste site cleanup, Brownfields
redevelopment, transportation of hazardous materials, and response
to spills and releases of hazardous materials. CCCHST members collectively
offer an average 200,000 contact hours of instruction each year.
HMTRI has received NIEHS funding to provide management, instructor
training and certification, curriculum, textbooks, instructional
aids, quality control, evaluation, and promotion for the members
of the CCCHST national consortium, in addition to providing local
worker training, CCCHST and HMTRI provide this model program to
the Partnership for Environmental Technology Education (PETE) and
its member colleges.
Annual GreatEST Refresher Training
 CCCHST
member instructors are required to successfully complete an HMTRI
Refresher course every two years. HMTRI annually offers four
(4) 2.5-day GreatEST Instructor Refresher Institutes. Refreshers
cover changes in regulations and technology, introduce new participatory
training techniques and exercises, and allow trainers to share
experiences and successful training material.
The content of Refreshers changes each year. Refreshers introduce
new material that instructors may incorporate into curriculum they
offer on their campuses including new web-based learning objects.
The time of the PI, Curriculum Designer/Programmer(s) and HMTRI
instructors is dedicated to developing Refresher training content
and preparing it for classroom and web-based delivery each year. |
GreatEST Train-the-Trainer Institute
 The
Great Environmental Safety Trainers' (GreatEST) Institute
annually offers training at Kirkwood Community College
in Cedar Rapids, IA. The GreatEST training outline is appended.
Instructor
and
program turnover at community colleges and community-based organizations
drive the need to prepare two instructors for every one instructor
currently teaching. However, the resources expended are not lost
because the major reason for instructor resignation is new employment
in the private sector as an industry trainer. One-third of the
CCCHST membership employs two or more environmental health and
safety instructors.
Instructors are selected on a first-come, first-served basis.
Limited travel support is provided to 20 instructors (limited
to one instructor
per institution when more than 20 applications are received.)
Up to eight additional instructors are accepted into the program
without travel support. When GreatEST is full, instructors are
placed on a waiting list. Those on the waiting list who do not
get into training are given preference the following year.
 Instructors
must be recommended by their sponsoring organizations. They
complete a registration form that asks for their educational background,
their instructional
experience, and specifically, their adult education experience.
Instructors must complete a confidential medical questionnaire that demonstrates
their
physical fitness for training.
Instructors’ organizations cover salaries while they are
in training. The two-week institutes prepare instructors to successfully
deliver waste site worker, emergency response, confined space,
and DOT training.
A prerequisite to attending a GreatEST Institute
is the completion of online coursework supporting course
content. Instructors must complete the electronic courses that
they make
available to their students.
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