TRAINING AT A NEW LEVEL

February 28, 2007 Vol. 3, No.5

More than a year ago Ron Gervais told me he was working with a training expert on a new air-brake instructional tool. There can’t be many folks on the planet who understand truck brakes better than Ron, who spent many years with Bendix before launching his own consultancy, so I took serious note. And I shocked him this past Christmas with an e-mail asking how the project was going.

“You remembered!” he wrote back.

As it happened, the interactive CD-ROM program — Air Brake Interactive – was nearing completion after a long five-year slog, so Ron promised me an up-close look ASAP. It’s the brainchild of Bryan Duross, a training veteran who works with his business partner Maryann Suchay as Duross, Suchay & Associates Ltd., with the able collaboration of Mr. Gervais and driver-trainer John Miller. A couple of weeks ago the bunch of them traipsed into my office and showed me the fruits of their many labors.

To say that I was impressed is to understate things rather a lot. Carefully and logically organized, as detailed as
it needs to be and no more, the program explains air brakes like nothing I’ve seen before.