Article Excerpt from:
Training SpacesT+D Magazine - July 2005 - p. 58-72
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MicroTek (www.mclabs.com) is a training facilities and event logistics provider that, in only 13 years, has grown from one San Francisco-based facility to 52 facilities nationwide. Don Slivensky, CEO and co-founder, explains: “We offer complete, on demand, flexible training capabilities and our forte is technology-driven training. All of our sites provide advanced computer classrooms and the technology services to support them.We are always on the cutting edge of whatever technology is needed for training or presentations.
“In addition, all of our training facilities are connected through a secure network so we’re able to move a client’s software around the country at a moment’s notice. Our clients have entrusted us with their software, which we keep archived on a secure FTP server system. So, no matter which MicroTek facility a client chooses, we can automatically send the software to any of those locations and have it loaded and set up for classes. Combined with Tracker, our Web-based reservation management system, we provide our clients with the tools to manage their national training events. All they need to do is just show up and teach.”
When looking to be of service, finding a need and filling it has always been the mantra of the entrepreneur and this is certainly the case for MicroTek. Slivensky says the idea for a turn-key training facility happened about 15 years ago. He was then an employee of Eastman Kodak. The company had developed a desktop publishing application and he had been tapped to deliver training across the country. So he booked the training into a hotel in the various cities, called a local computer store to rent the terminals, and called a “Rent a Geek” company to hire someone to help him.
“Frankly,” says Slivensky, “this kind of make-shift situation never turned out very well. In the best cases, it turned out OK. And then a trainer’s worst nightmare happened:We were one hour into a week-long training and the hotel we had booked apparently didn’t have enough power. We had a brownout and burnt up all the computers, which we had to buy. All the trainees were immediately sent home—it was a complete disaster! So I started thinking, there’s got to be a better way to deliver high-quality, computer-based training.
“We opened the first MicroTek facility in San Francisco, which remained our only location for about seven years. Then after hearing our customers continuously ask, ‘We love this! Do you have this in New York, Washington, and Chicago?’ we decided to roll these facilities out nation-wide.”
It turned out to be a good idea. MicroTek’s facilities are now in the top 25 metro areas in the country, covering 80 percent of the population. Last year, the company received the Deloitte-Touche Technology Fast 500 Award, and has been on Inc. magazine’s 500 Fastest Growing Companies list for three years in a row.
When it comes to understanding the needs of their clients, MicroTek knows it all starts with the students. “And all of our facilities,” says Slivensky, “are deliberately positioned close to amenities. Our Web site provides the students with hotel information, as well as local information and local activities. Along with the training and conference facility, we help the client deliver a consistent, successful training event, anywhere in the country, by looking after their students.”
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The complete article is available here: http://www.astd.org/astd/Publications/TD_Magazine/2005_pdf/76050758.htm