Training Programs

A parade of Baltimore police officers, from rookies to a 30-year veteran, told City Council members Wednesday night that training programs developed by the department have sharpened their skills and helped build camaraderie among the ranks. But questioning about spending related to those programs was postponed as council members sought additional information from the agency. Pointing to recent police problems, such as a towing kickback scandal that is in court this week, City Councilman Brandon M. Scott called the hearing last month to question the effectiveness and costs of the training programs.

Since 1899, the Coast Guard's shipyard at Curtis Bay has added years to the life of the sea-battered fleet, repairing and upgrading hundreds of cutters before sending them back on patrol. So in 2002 when shipyard officials looked at the future and saw a graying workforce with an average age of 47, they crafted a rejuvenation plan based on nurturing home-grown talent. The trades training program they created has placed 125 students and graduates in the Curtis Bay workforce, which numbers 625. The apprentices receive not just trades training but college credits.

Edward Rogowski, who oversaw training programs for the state Department of Human Resources, died of heart failure Saturday at Good Samaritan Hospital. The Towson resident was 84. Mr. Rogowski was born in Weirton, W.Va., the son of Polish immigrants, and moved to Poland with his parents as a child. He graduated from high school in Warsaw. He returned to Baltimore in 1939 and enlisted in the Army in 1941, serving with an infantry unit in the Pacific during World War II. After the war, Mr. Rogowski was employed as a draftsman at the former Glenn L. Martin Co. in Middle River before going to work for the Department of Human Resources in 1960 -- the year he earned his bachelor's degree in business administration from the Johns Hopkins University.

Bigger, faster, stronger might sound cliche, but this is the evolution of the sport of lacrosse. The result is that athletes are engaging in structured training programs in high school, with some athletes beginning in middle school. The goal of these programs is to enable athletes to improve their athletic skills (speed, agility, power, strength and coordination) while attempting to reduce injury risk. To maximize results, the athlete, strength and conditioning coach, and parents must be on the same page.

In the 1990s, business leaders must become comfortable with cultural diversity in the workplace, says Paul Beatty, the newly appointed "executive in residence" at the University of Baltimore.In his new job, the 49-year-old Mr. Beatty is responsible for developing executive training programs in connection with the university. These will be among the first business "outreach" programs for the school and many will focus on workplace diversity, says Mr. Beatty, former head of human resources for Chase Bank of Maryland.

WASHINGTON -- The Clinton administration doesn't have a job training policy; it has 154 of them.That's how many separate, competing, duplicative programs the government runs to help people find new careers.At least 65 job training programs serve poor Americans. Forty-five help youth. Six target American Indians. Others focus on ex-felons, displaced homemakers, refugees and runaways.It's a Herculean task to understand the options that are available, says Linda Morra, a General Accounting Office investigator.

CHICAGO - In an ambitious program said to be the first of its kind in the nation, a local agency is training suburban immigrants to become fair-housing advocates, able to identify discrimination and negotiate with local governments throughout the six-county Chicago area. The Leadership Council for Metropolitan Open Communities hopes immigrants will be capable of working independently of fair-housing organizations, which are overwhelmed by the large number of cases in far-flung suburban areas.

Howard to share $42 million for job trainingHoward County is one of 12 service delivery areas in the state slated to receive a share of $42 million from the Job Training Partnership Act. The money is to be used for employment training programs for economically disadvantaged youths and unskilled adults.The money is part of $56 million from the federal government to the state for employment and training programs, according to a statement released by the governor's office.The remaining $14 million is allocated for the Maryland Job Service, a broker that acts through the Maryland Department of Economic and Employment Development's local offices for employers and job seekers.

Shares of Baltimore-based Caliber Learning Network Inc., a money-losing, development-stage distributor of education and training programs for working adults, rose as much as 21 percent yesterday in their first day of trading.The company rose $2 to finish at $16 as 1.6 million shares changed hands on the Nasdaq stock market. Earlier, the stock touched $16.88. The company and selling shareholders sold 5.7 million shares, a 47 percent stake, at $14 each, raising $79.8 million. The sale gave Caliber a market capitalization of about $168.

THE STRIKING thing about the latest report on the quality of education colleges' training of school principals and administrators was not its verdict, that "the majority of these programs range from inadequate to appalling." That conclusion has not changed since at least 1987, when a national study found the same. Instead, the stunning thing was that three leading organizations of principals and administrators essentially agreed that "many programs simply do not teach what it takes to run a school or a school district."

Every week for nearly a year, Sonnie Jones visited the Baltimore Police Academy to help put on a demonstration about how officers could better interact with residents in the city's crime-ridden neighborhoods. Though the demonstrations could become heated, officers often ended up thanking him for his perspective. But while his participation in the in-service training was always on a volunteer basis, he now wonders whether the city took advantage of his good will, in light of reports that guest speakers and non-law enforcement consultants were paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to participate in other police training.

WEATHER Today's forecast calls for rain with a high temperature near 52 degrees. It is expected to be cloudy tonight with a low temperature around 36 degrees. TRAFFIC Check our updates for this morning's issues as you plan your commute. FROM LAST NIGHT... O'Malley explains evolution of stance on same-sex marriage at Sun forum : Gov. Martin O'Malley gave his most detailed explanation to date for the evolution of his stance on gay marriage, at the inaugural Baltimore Sun Newsmaker Forum Wednesday evening.

A parade of Baltimore police officers, from rookies to a 30-year veteran, told City Council members Wednesday night that training programs developed by the department have sharpened their skills and helped build camaraderie among the ranks. But questioning about spending related to those programs was postponed as council members sought additional information from the agency. Pointing to recent police problems, such as a towing kickback scandal that is in court this week, City Councilman Brandon M. Scott called the hearing last month to question the effectiveness and costs of the training programs.

Just north of the Johns Hopkins medical campus, in the Middle East section of East Baltimore — an area where hundreds of families were moved out and hundreds of homes were razed as part of a $1.8 billion urban renewal project — a new neighborhood is beginning to sprout. Under construction are $300 million worth of projects, including a state health laboratory, a 351-unit graduate student housing tower and a garage with a Walgreens drugstore, among other structures. Now plans are in the works for a mixed-income area with a state-of-the-art elementary school, a grocery store and restaurants, office buildings, and a park lined with loft-style apartments and a hotel.

Amanda McMahon , of Baltimore, and Susan Getz , of Ellicott City, participated in a three-day training program at the Redken Exchange, held Aug. 14-18, in New York. The two learned new and innovative cutting and styling techniques, participating in more than 24-hours of advanced. They are both members of the Cavallaro team, located in the Columbia mall.

A national study on the quality of student teaching at schools of education ranks two of the three programs examined in Maryland as weak. The National Council on Teacher Quality, which ranked a random sample of three institutions in each state, gave Mount St. Mary's University and Salisbury University "weak" ratings and University of Maryland, Baltimore County a rating of "good. " The council spent two years working on the study, which looks at the student teaching experience at 134 institutions of higher education.

LEARN TO GET INTERNS FROM PARALEGAL CLASSLawyers can learn the cost-effective use of paralegals at a seminar sponsored by the Bay Area Paralegal Association and Anne Arundel Community College at 7:30 p.m. Oct. 9.The seminar will include three brief lectures by area lawyers. Also, participants will meet judges, lawyers and students involved in the college paralegal studies program that offers a degree and certificate program in paralegal studies.Last spring 13 students interned for area firms and 15 are in internships this fall.

Pacific Animated Imaging Corp. of Annapolis plans to produce a series of interactive computer-animated software programs for Miller Brewing Co. that will be used to train brewery workers throughout the United States, PAI said yesterday.John Cadigan, co-founder and chief executive officer of PAI, said Miller representatives are scheduled to visit PAI's production facilities in Redmond, Wash., next week to make final program selections. Depending how many programs Miller decides to buy, the deal could be worth from $20,000 to $150,000 for PAI, Mr. Cadigan said.

The Junior Tennis Champions Center at College Park aims to offer the young athletes it trains a chance to become just that - champions. While by definition it's a regional training center, Patrick McEnroe, general manager of player development for the United States Tennis Association, calls it "national in its own scope" and says it's "one of the biggest and one of the best. " The Tennis Center at College Park is the site of the Citi Open, a WTA international women's professional tennis tournament that begins Saturday and runs through July 31. But for much of the year the facility's main focus is on buiding future professionals.

Bernice H. Cohen, a retired Johns Hopkins University scientist who was an early advocate of showing how genetics and epidemiology could be connected, died of congestive heart failure April 12 at the North Oaks Retirement Community. She was 86. "She was unique in having the foresight to bring together the scientific fields of genetics and epidemiology, and established the first formal academic training program in genetic epidemiology at Johns Hopkins in 1979," said a Hopkins colleague, Terri H. Beaty of Cockeysville.