Why Should The Nielsen Environmental Field School Do Your On-Site Training? One Word: EXPERIENCE

All of our on-site courses are instructed by the principals of The Nielsen Environmental Field School, David M. Nielsen and Gillian L. Nielsen. Combined, they have nearly 6 decades of practical field and training experience. They are seasoned professionals who have been in the forefront of environmental education for nearly three decades and they have taught thousands of environmental processionals around the world over their careers. You can be confident that your instructors know their subject matter inside and out, and they know how to convey it to your staff in the most effective manner possible.

David and Gillian have earned many prestigious awards within the environmental industry for their work in the area of technical standards development, significant editorial contributions to professional peer-reviewed journals, and contributions to the ground-water industry. In addition, they have authored a number of technical papers and top-selling books on subjects including environmental site characterization, ground-water monitoring, ground-water sampling and environmental applications of drilling and direct-push technology.

On occasion, our clients will select a topic of interest that is outside of the personal expertise of our principal instructors. In rare situations like these, we can call in outside expertise from a pool of recognized experts in their field that we use as support instructors.

On-Site Training Course Options: Format, Length, Timing and Field Equipment Needs are All Considered

On-site courses can be either classroom only, field-based only, or a combination of classroom and field training, the most popular option. The option you select depends on what you want to emphasize - basic scientific concepts, proper field practices, or both. Keep in mind that it is difficult to learn proper field methods through classroom exercises only. In our experience, it is essential to involve people in using the equipment and techniques that they learn about in the classroom. We continually hear confirmation from our students that interactive, hands-on training under real-world conditions provides them with the most lasting educational experience.

On-site courses can range from 1 to 5 days in length, and can be held during the week or over the weekend. We've even done 4 week-long courses over several months time for one of our regulatory agency clients. If you are unsure about course length, we can make a recommendation based on the subjects you want to cover, the level of detail you desire, and the amount of time you'd like to spend in the field. For example, on the subject of ground-water sampling, we can construct a curriculum from 1 to 4 days with from 1 to 3 field sessions, depending on the depth of coverage you need.

For field sessions, we can either train your staff on proper operation of equipment you own or use, or we can supply the equipment, a popular option for those who want to evaluate new or different equipment without having to purchase it first. We are familiar with most major brands of field equipment and we maintain a large inventory of state-of-the-art equipment, from pumps and grab samplers to field analytical instruments and test kits. For our International clients, rather than ship equipment from New Mexico to your location, we make every attempt to identify and work with equipment suppliers local to you. It makes sense to learn about the equipment available to you and it helps us keep course budgets in check by minimizing costly equipment shipping and customs charges.

Is On-Site Training the Best Option for Your Company?

If you have a group of 10 or more staff to train, on-site training can easily be cost effective, but we have developed and instructed on-site courses for groups as small as 2 and as large as 100! Here are some of the creative ways that our clients have built on-site training into their programs:

Incorporate it into annual corporate meetings as a technical refresher session

Satisfy the problem of training staff when out-of-state travel budgets are restricted

Bring in unbiased outside experts to work with staff to resolve project-specific issues

Provide guidance on adopting and using new field protocols to ensure consistency, as well as accuracy and precision in field data

Ensure standardization of field practices and procedures for in-house field staff and field personnel contracted to perform field work

Ask yourself if you have the following:

A need to update the technical knowledge of your staff

A desire to stay competitive in the marketplace

A need for multiple staff to earn CEUs to maintain their professional registrations

If you have even one of these needs, then on-site training may be right for your staff!

The 3C's of On-Site Training -- All Advantages to You!

On-site training can save you from 30% to 70% over conventional open-enrollment training. You pay one lump sum fee for up to 20 people (for a nominal cost, we can accommodate more if your group is larger). You don't pay staff travel costs or per-person registration fees, so you can train more people for less money. The actual amount saved depends on the length of the course and the number of people attending. Savings are greatest for multiple-day courses with higher attendance. The cost of each on-site course includes: course development; instructor labor and expenses; development of any client-specific instructional materials; use of our field equipment as selected by you; and training materials that include highly refined PowerPoint presentations, superior quality course notebooks, weatherproof field notebooks and field reference materials. After we run the numbers for you, you will agree that on-site training is very cost-effective!

Let's Do the Math...

First, consider how much it costs to send one of your staff to a typical 2-day open-enrollment course. The average per-person cost is about $1,950.00 which includes registration fees, airfare, hotel, rental car and gas, per diem, parking, tolls, and miscellaneous expenses. The cost to send one staff member to a 4-day course is over $3500.00. To send 10 staff, multiply that by 10; your cost to train 10 staff for 2 days is $19,500.00; for 4 days, $35,000.00 - Ouch!

We could provide you with average costs for an on-site course, but each quote we provide is course-specific. The cost for a typical Nielsen Environmental Field School on-site training course will vary with the length of the course, the subject matter (whether we can use existing materials or have to develop new materials), the number of staff you have to train, where the course will be held (relative to our base in Las Cruces, NM) and the time of year you would like us to teach the course. To obtain an accurate quote for the course you want, just contact us with your needs.

We come to you! No longer do you have to worry about the hassles of traveling to a remote location for training! You can schedule training when you need it at a location convenient to you. Your staff won't lose valuable time traveling to a remote location at an inconvenient time that doesn't fit into your work schedule. We can even teach classes over a weekend to avoid losses of billable time on the job - a feature that many of our clients appreciate having as an option. The schedule can be designed to fit into the constraints of your standard work day to avoid employer expenses of worker overtime if necessary.

One of the greatest advantages of on-site training is that we will work with you to develop a customized course that meets your specific training needs. You select the subject matter and we assist in developing a curriculum that meets your objectives. You are not limited to "off-the-shelf" presentations. If you choose to provide us with your SOPs during the course development stage, we can address your specific practices and procedures throughout the course, thereby ensuring relevance of the entire course to everyone in your group. Because the course is held in the privacy of your facility, candid discussions of procedures and issues of concern are encouraged. Of course, all client-specific SOPs and in-course discussions are considered to be strictly confidential by Nielsen Environmental Field School staff. Many clients have specific topics of interest and time can be proportioned accordingly. On-site classes can contain either classroom sessions only or a mixture of classroom and field sessions - you decide! Our goal is to ensure that everyone will learn things that they can use immediately on the job whether they are field technicians, environmental scientists, compliance specialists, project managers, supervisors, or other staff.

If you'd rather simplify the planning process and go with one of the courses we have already assembled, you can simply choose from any of the following courses (click on the course name for additional information on each course):

The Complete Ground-Water Monitoring Field Course (5 days)

The Environmental Sampling Field Course (4 days)

The Complete Ground-Water Sampling Field Course (3 days)

The Complete Surface-Water and Sediment Sampling Field Course (2 days)

The Complete Ground-Water Monitoring Well Design, Construction and Development Field Course (2 days)

The Low-Flow Purging and Sampling and No-Purge Sampling Field Course (1 day)

Soil Sampling for Volatile Organic Compounds Using US EPA Method 5035 (1 day)

 

Training Materials Provided as Part of Your Course

For our classroom sessions, we maintain an extensive library of professionally prepared PowerPoint presentations, and we provide detailed course handouts keyed to our clean, colorful audiovisuals. Our clients use our training manuals as long-term references, because they include print copies of all presentations, supported by exhaustive and up-to-date reference lists on each topic. You have the option of reproducing these manuals in-house or you can have us take care of it.

Our training manuals can be supplemented by copies of pertinent publications available from The Nielsen Environmental Field School including:

"The Practical Handbook of Environmental Site Characterization and Ground-Water Monitoring." (CRC Press, 2006)

"The Essential Handbook of Ground-Water Sampling." (CRC Press, 2007); and

" Technical Guidance on Low-Flow Purging and Minimal-Purge Sampling." (NEFS, 2002).

We can also include copies of the ASTM Standards that we helped produce and other Standards relevant to the subject matter of your course.

In the field, students are provided with all-weather field notebooks to record results of field activities. We can also provide state-of-the-science field equipment for use during hands-on field training sessions (at no extra charge), or we can work with equipment you already own and use or that is dedicated to sites on which you are currently working. We can even do a combination of the two if you are interested in comparing or upgrading field equipment.

What Topics Are Available for On-Site Courses?

Ready to Start Planning Your On-Site Training Course?

The first step is to give us a call (575-532-5535) or send us an e-mail (info@envirofieldschool.com) to get things rolling. We will want to know the following to begin preparing a course-specific quote for you:

1. What subject area(s) do you want to cover and what level of detail would you like?

2. How long would you like the course to be?

3. Do you want classroom training only, field training only, or a combination of both?

4. How many people do you need to train?

5. Where would you like to hold the course?

6. Do you have access to a suitable classroom and field facilities, or would you like us to locate those for you?

7. When would you like to hold the course?

Using this information, we will provide you with an accurate, all-inclusive lump-sum cost for us to design and instruct your course. We will also provide options for course dates and assist in the selection of course subjects and level of detail to ensure that the course will meet your needs.

Here are a Couple of Recent On-Site Courses We Have Developed and Instructed to Illustrate How On-Site Training Can Work!

Course Subject: Ground-Water Monitoring & Sampling and Surface Water Sampling Field Course

Course Location: Jutiapa, Guatemala

Course Length: 5 Days with Two Field Sessions

Who Attended?: In-house environmental sampling staff, in-house project manageers, as well as regulatory agency personnel from Guatemala and the neighboring countries of El Salvador and Honduras.

A Brief Overview of the Course:

Our client, one of the world's leaders in mining, wanted to bring its staff up to date on current field practices used in North America for ground-water monitoring well design and installation, ground-water sampling and surface-water sampling. Difficult hydrogeologic conditions created special issues for this client which included: installation of wells in volcanic materials and sampling of geothermal wells in addition to sampling very deep wells and wells with very little water. Operating in a developing country also provided technical challenges, so regulatory agency personnel involved in developing and enforcing environmental regulations affecting ground-water monitoring at mining operations were also invited to attend so that they too could learn about current technologies. In addition to ground-water, the group was also interested in learning about proper strategies for monitoring and sampling surface water systems because that too was included in their monitoring obligations by regulatory authorities. We were able to modify our Complete Ground-Water Monitoring Field Course to include a session on surface water sampling and field parameter measurement in surface water systems. Two field sessions were conducted as part of this course. The first was on ground-water sampling at the new mine site just outside Jutiapa and the second was on surface-water sampling at field site upstream of a nearby village.

Attendees of this course all spoke Spanish, so Nielsen Environmental Field School worked with the company Comunicacion sin Fronteras to provide simultaneous translation of the entire course -- both in the classroom and outside during our field training sessions!

Geothermal wells and electronic water level gauges do not get along as we discovered by talking to field sampling team members. The solution? Use a "plopper" to determine the depth to water - a method addressed in ASTM Standard Method D4750 that is not used a great deal normally, but here proved to save the day!

To teach attendees how to correctly operate ground-water sampling pumps on wells at other sites that were not geothermal, improvisation was necessary. Pumps were relocated to an on-site catchment basin where water was cool to make it possible to show proper use of electric submersible pumps connected to a flow-cell with a multi-parameter sonde as would be used for low-flow purging and sampling.

What is Next?

Plans are in the works for us to return to Guatemala to do a follow-up course. Now that people have learned current procedures for sampling ground-water and surface water, the plan is for them to develop revised Standard Operating Procedures and then learn how to fine tune them in an advanced follow-up course some time in 2010.

Course Subject: Environmental Sampling Field Course

Course Location: Las Vegas, NV

Course Length: 3 days with one field session

Who Attended: In-house environmental sampling staff involved with monitoring one of the nation's largest waste water treatment facilities. In addition, staff working at several remote waste water treatment facilities in the state also attended.

A Brief Overview of the Course:

Our client for this course operates a very large wastewater treatment facility which is responsible for the treatment of incoming effluent from the City of Las Vegas and surrounding suburbs. In conjunction with the operation of this wastewater treatment facility, the site has regulatory requirements for monitoring ground water, surface water, and discharge chemistry. This requires sampling team members to be knowledgeable in current sampling protocols for both manual and automated sampling programs throughout the facility. To meet the training needs of this client, we modified our Environmental Sampling Field Course to focus on ground water, surface water and waste sampling. The final afternoon of the course was spent in the field learning how to deploy surface water sampling devices, how to work with multi-parameter instrumentation for surface water and effluent monitoring applications and how to collect ground-water samples from an on-site monitoring well. A good field site was not immediately accessible for surface water sampling, so we improvised and sampled in the clarification tanks of the treatment facility. We soon discovered that the on-site ground-water monitoring well, screened in a very tight grained formation, was not going to be a good candidate for traditional purging methods used on high-yield wells, so the field session focused on how to determine what the optimal purging and sampling strategy should be.

Classroom sessions were held at the waste treatment facility office in Las Vegas. Classroom sessions were designed to work around typical daily schedules of the staff, so days started at 7:00 a.m. and finished up around 3:00 p.m.

Students learned how to collect depth-discrete water samples using a variety of surface water sampling devices which included the Kemmerer Sampler seen here. Students worked from a catwalk over the clarification tank to learn how to use the devices. Students then analyzed the samples using a Hach spectrophotometer to determine changes in chemistry with depth within the clarification tank. These data confirmed the system was working properly.

Time was spent in the field to explain how multi-parameter sondes work and then students were instructed on the proper calibration techniques that they need to incorporate into their ground-water monitoring and surface water sampling programs.

What's Next?

Plans are in the works for bringing Nielsen Environmental Field School back once a year to conduct "refresher" training for staff and to get new staff up to speed with sample collection protocols.

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Las Cruces, NM 88011
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