Learning Without Scars began in the early 2000s as the successor to Quest Learning Centers, which we founded in 1994. In 2015, we closed the California company and formed Learning Without Scars LLC in Hawaii. My use of computer-based training grew out of the consulting business I started in Canada in 1980. After moving to the United States in 1983 to run a software company called EBS, I expanded my consulting work through dealer operations reviews. Those reviews helped me identify problems, develop options, and implement needed changes. Because implementation required employees to learn new processes, methods, and systems, training became a central part of my work with dealer organizations.
In 1994, economic pressures caused most operational management training to be put on hold. Original equipment manufacturers and dealer associations viewed training as a discretionary expense, so they stopped offering most operational programs.
That summer, I spent July and August using IBM ViaVoice to dictate eight 250-page textbooks: three for parts, three for service, and two for sales and marketing. Drawing on fourteen years of consulting experience, I invited ten dealers to attend and critique pilot classes. Their feedback helped me refine the material into eight two-day courses. Each course addressed four core dealership areas: operations, leadership, finance, and selling. The two-day format was divided into four-hour blocks, with each area receiving four hours of training. Delivered over three years, the program provided six two-hour segments for each core area.
In the early 2000s, another economic downturn shifted demand toward webinars. As a teacher, I was not enthusiastic about webinars because I could not see or interact with students directly. Even so, we adapted by creating one-hour webinars, each focused on a specific subject. In effect, I divided each two-hour classroom segment into two one-hour online sessions, expanding each class from six segments to twelve webinars.
While conducting webinars, I experimented with ways to make the experience more engaging for students. I developed a delivery approach using a laptop, projector, remote control, and large screen. I could advance the slides, turn off the presentation, step in front of the projector, and speak directly to the audience to reinforce what they had just seen. This approach reflected teaching methods I learned at McGill University when I began teaching in 1964. One method was “show, tell, show, try”: show the material, explain it, show it again, and then let students apply it. Another was “with assistance, to assistance, to solo,” like pilot training. First, the instructor sets up the task; next, the student performs it with the instructor present; finally, the student performs independently.
Webinars have opened a new way of thinking about training. I began putting these one-hour segments online, which was still unfamiliar territory for Internet-based training. To make it work, I had to identify, evaluate, and implement a range of new software tools.
That evolution led to Learning Without Scars as it exists today. We provide Internet-based training for the capital goods industry. My daughter Caroline, who holds a master’s degree in education and works as a full-time teacher and curriculum advisor in California, prepared our application to IACET, the International Accreditors for Continuing Education and Training. IACET approved us as an accredited provider, allowing our classes to award continuing education units, or CEUs. Students can present our certificates to technical schools, vocational schools, community colleges, and public or private universities around the world. We are proud to be the only company in the capital goods industry with this accreditation.
The Time is Now.