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VITEC celebrates 20 years with lottery

A monthly lottery is being held throughout this year, offering the opportunity for a free or reduced-price class in celebration of the 20th anniversary of the Vital Innovative Training & Economic Development Center.

Individuals or businesses that sign up for an e-mail newsletter from VITEC will have their names placed in the lottery. To enter, go online to ocet.org and click on 20th anniversary.

Each month this year, three individuals will be given one free class and a business will receive a 50 percent discount for a custom training program for its employees.

Enrollment in classes is being offered at a 20 percent discount, although some restrictions apply. For more information, call 984-3231.

KAHULUI - Beginning as a visitor industry work force training center 20 years ago, a Maui Community College program has changed its name over the years to reflect its broadening reach.

But the Vital Innovative Training & Economic Development Center has kept its familiar acronym, VITEC.

Over the years, the center's acronym also has stood for the Visitor Industry Training and Education Center and the Visitor Industry Training and Economic Development Center.

Director Lois Greenwood, who has been with the program since its beginning in 1989, has seen it grow from a hotel management and training program to a base for continuing education in business and technology, plus personal enrichment courses for adults.

"We like to see ourselves as an outreach program in the community," Greenwood said.

The Vital Innovative Training & Economic Development Center currently serves more than 10,000 people annually and employs more than 100 training professionals.

Greenwood said the key to the center's success is its ability to address the community's needs.

The center was first conceived in 1988 when work force training was identified as one of Maui's greatest needs in the visitor industry. The program was launched with the help of a $250,000 contribution from hotelier and philanthropist Charles Sweeney. It opened its doors in January 1989 under the name Visitor Industry Training and Education Center.

Offices were based in a World War II Quonset hut rented from The Maui News. The structure was converted into classrooms, offices and a conference room.

In addition to visitor industry training, the center also began to offer computer classes.

By the mid-1990s, VITEC moved out of the Quonset hut and into office space at the Maui Research & Technology Park, where work force training for high-tech entrepreneurs was needed. The center stepped in with such training and added business classes to its offerings. Its new name then became the Visitor Industry Training and Economic Development Center.

At the beginning of this decade, the center moved to the MCC campus. Now at the college's Laulima Building, the Visitor Innovative Training and Economic Development Center continues to provide visitor industry and business training. In addition, it offers custom-designed training for Maui's resorts as well as retail stores and businesses.

The customized training varies from subjects such as Hawaiian culture to leadership in nursing. None of the courses comes with college credit, but they have at times assisted people seeking new job skills or promotions.

Laurie Tomas, the director of nursing at Hale Makua in Kahului, has used the center and its programs as a means to improve her skills as well as those of the employees around her.

"I view my job as being supportive of my staff," Tomas said.

She has used training from the center to lead two classes developed by the center for Hale Makua - nurse leadership and compassionate caring and continuous communication.

In the nurse leadership program, Tomas has nine other trainers within Hale Makua to teach the course.

"It's really boosted confidence in my nurses and helped to identify how we manage our staff," Tomas said.

The compassionate caring and continuous communication course not only orients new employees to Hale Makua but addresses the unique challenges of working at a long-term-care nursing facility.

"It makes us understand people and their different cultures. We need to be more sensitive to our patients, and that's the biggest piece. It's not what you say but what you don't say sometimes that makes a difference," Tomas said.

She said employees have found the compassionate caring and continuous communication course to be of great use in their personal lives.

"Communication in itself is 90 percent of being successful, whether it's with families, with people you work with or people at your own home," she said.

Greenwood said that while the center's programs spent the first 10 of 20 years con-centrating on hotel and resort operations, it has since moved to offer specialized training at places such as Hale Makua.

"The need is there, and word has gotten out there that we can help with training," she said.

Through its numerous programs, the center's goal is to help increase the competitiveness of Maui's working people and businesses so that they can meet the challenges of the marketplace.

Richard McAndrew, a retired business executive, has been employed by the center for the last eight years and teaches different management classes.

Subjects include negotiating, critical thinking, sales, project management and presentation skills.

"Each person takes it on and makes it their own," McAndrew said about the subjects he teaches.

"My passion is education," said McAndrew, who also serves as a "roving professor" both online and in person for courses offered in France, Austria and California. "It's applied learning versus theory," he said.

He said his students are individuals who are either looking to improve themselves in business management or are seeking a promotion and want the skills needed to become managers.

"I try to give people a framework, a method to work with. They pick the one that's best, easiest and most productive for them," he said. "I'm more of a coach."

In addition to business and computer technology, the training center offers a number of personal enrichment courses for adults. These include Hawaiian culture and language, music and dance, photography and leisure activities.

Among the center's newest offerings is a weeklong "Boot Camp for Goddesses," a course for women at all levels of physical fitness. Its features include yoga, fitness workouts, meditation, aromatherapy, and discussions on women's health and nutrition.

Registration is still being accepted for the boot camp scheduled for April 21 to 26. To register, call Dawn Freels at 984-3420.

Greenwood said she's always looking for new ideas for classes. Many of them come up through discussions with her staff or from what's happening or may be popular in the community.

For example, in February, the center offered a course in iPod and iTunes, to help those interested in the digital music revolution. In May, the center has scheduled a two-hour class in Skype, Twitter and Internet messaging. The noncredit course addresses the latest technology in computers and how people communicate "live" on the Internet.

Prices vary depending on the class. Tuition assistance can be provided. For more information, go online and visit ocet.org or call 984-3231.

* Claudine San Nicolas can be reached at claudine@mauinews.com.