Whatcom Community College specializes in group training. Groups can be as small as five people or as large as 50. We customize course curriculum to the specific needs and concerns of your business or organization. By customizing the training, we can focus on your businesses specific needs and issues. Workshops are taught in a standard lecture/hands-on format with plenty of time for questions.

Please note that we do not provide consulting services or one-to-one training.

We do not require that our customers have a business to take advantage of customized training. We have provided training for local clubs, neighborhood groups, and non-profit organizations. However, if you are not with a business, government agency, or non-profit organization, we will require payment before the class begins.

Workshops can vary in length depending on your needs and budget. When you first meet with with us, an assessment will be performed to give you an idea of the time needed to complete the training. We can supply workshops as short as 3 hours all the way up to multi-session, quarter-long trainings.

As you work with the customized training coordinator, you will determine the appropriate length of your training. Our goal is to give you the right training in the shortest time possible.

We provide dozens of workshops on a wide variety of subjects. Both business training and computer skills training are included. If you do not find the topic you are interested in among our current customized training classes, please give us a call. Many of our instructors can teach workshops on other topics that are not listed. If we don't offer the curriculum that exactly matches your needs, we will create a new workshop specifically for your business.

One of the things we are most proud of at WCC is the excellence of our instructors. When selecting instructors, we look for individuals with years of experience in their fields, substantial training experience, and friendly, outgoing personalities. Our instructors come from the business and computer worlds and most are still active contributors to local business. This makes them well-versed in the newest trends and skills affecting your industry.  If for any reason you have less than a satisfactory experience with an instructor in one of our customized trainings, you will not be charged for the workshop.

Generally we need 2 to 3 weeks to plan and schedule a customized training. Computer training using our computer lab may take longer depending on lab availability. If you have a high priority training need, however, we can sometimes arrange a class in less than a week based on space and instructor availability. We can also plan a wholes year's worth of training at one time.

Customized training workshops are often less expensive than sending individuals to our regularly scheduled classes. Not only is the cost cheaper in most instances, the value of the training increases as we are able to focus on the specific skills your staff needs to be more productive. In many cases, we can use examples from your business in the training and your staff can discuss issues that may be too sensitive in a public setting.

It is also important to note that our classes are priced based on our real costs and not according to some vague notion of what one would pay in Seattle. Our training also includes extras you don't always find in other training, including certificates of completion, registration services, and performance tracking.

Training should not be looked at as an expense. Rather, the cost of training should be translated into what it means for the profitability of the business. Effective training should show bottom-line return on the investment in time and money.