CACEO Education Update

Greetings to all our membership on behalf of myself and the Education Committee. As 2021 is shaping up to be an exciting year, we are eager to update you as to our plans for this year and moving forward.

First, let me introduce myself. My name is Amanda Ahrens, and I am your 2021 1^st Vice President and Education Committee chair. I currently serve as a Code Compliance Officer with the County of Ventura. I have a passion for education and training with a goal to seek out the most relevant topics and engaging instructors to provide fresh and interesting educational opportunities for you, our membership. I am thrilled to be serving you in this capacity.

CCEO Certification Modules

In 2020 the onset of Covid-19 and the accompanying restrictions that prohibited in-person trainings caused us to cancel all in-person courses, including the CCEO Certification Modules. This created a deeply felt void amongst our members. We recognize the complications this may have caused you, especially those of you who work for jurisdictions that require your certifications to be obtained within a certain amount of time from the point of hiring.

To fill this void, we have worked to create an online opportunity to obtain your certification via Zoom. However, the Zoom platform is only a temporary solution as its functionality does not fit fully with our needs. This has created some angst amongst our membership as attendance caps have been put in place to best serve the participants of our current online modules. We do thank you for your patience and understanding if you have found yourself waitlisted for any of the modules.

Rest assured, we are working diligently behind the scenes to create an online certification process that is innovative and user friendly. We are currently in negotiations with an online platform on which to provide our certification modules. We have taken your input, especially that which spoke to your difficulties in attending in-person certification modules, and have used it to develop a format that addresses those needs and concerns. We recognized that an all week, all day long format may be hard to schedule amongst demands from work, family, and life in general. Based on these considerations, we are developing a hybrid format that provides both on-demand courses and live instruction.

I am sure the big question now is, “When will this new format be available to you?” If we are able to close negotiations soon, our goal is to have it available to you within the next 6 months as a Module I with the subsequent Modules to follow. This is where you, our membership, can assist us with meeting this goal.

Instructors/Presenters Wanted

Have you found yourself wanting to instruct or present on behalf of CACEO but did not know how to get involved? We are looking for instructors and presenters to assist with developing the on-demand library for our certification modules. If you are a current instructor or are interested in becoming an instructor, please submit the information listed below here. 

• Name, current employer, and position
• Profession headshot, bio, and resume
• Top three (3) areas/topics of expertise on which you would like to instruct/present and background related to this area/topic

Continuing Education Courses

Our Education Calendar is filling up quickly and should be fully scheduled for the year within the coming weeks. Our goal has been to seek out engaging instructors and new voices on relevant topics while taking the subject matter deeper. We hope you enjoy the line-up of instructors and topics.

Many Thanks to You!

I would like to take this opportunity for the support, encouragement, and feedback we have received about our educational offerings from those with whom I have had the privilege to speak. We do what we do because of you. If you have questions, suggestions, or just want to talk education, please feel free to email me at aahrens@caceo.us. I look forward to speaking with you soon!

- Amanda Ahrens
CACEO's 1st Vice President and Education Committee Chair