One way for a company to maintain a world-class reputation is by remaining nimble in the face of economic troubles. Like many small companies, the recession hit us hard. Our primary business—expert witness for environmental litigation—became a much smaller market, and we could see from various court rulings that it was likely going to become static in size. And so we began to explore new lines of business with the focus on taking advantage of our strengths.

Many organizations view training their employees, business partners, and customers as a mission-critical activity, and creating an outstanding training program is no easy task. Achieving accreditation from a continuing education and training (CE/T) accrediting agency ensures an excellent learning process. While some accrediting agencies are specific to a particular field, such as medicine, pharmaceutical, or high tech, others focus on the learning process, regardless of industry. The International Association for Continuing Education & Training (IACET) is one of the latter.

On March 5, 2013, Greenfield Advisors was approved as an Authorized Provider of IACET continuing education units (CEUs). IACET accreditation gives us a competitive advantage in a complex marketplace while assuring our customers that they are receiving the best value for their CE/T dollar. This accreditation is a hallmark of quality, one based on the most recent research in adult learning and education.

IACET accreditation offers the following benefits to Greenfield Advisors and our clients:

  • We can now offer IACET CEUs for our courses, which are accepted by a wide range of organizations, including professional associations, regulatory boards, corporations, and universities.
  • IACET is the only CE/T standard-setting organization approved by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). Adhering to the ANSI/IACET Standards ensures a systematic approach to identifying and analyzing learning needs and developing quality CE/T programs that meet consumer needs.
  • Conforming to the ANSI/IACET Standards ensures that we are following best practices in adult education.
  • We have the ability to benchmark our training procedures against international standards and best-in-class organizations.
  • We have access to a community of over 650 accredited entities as a member resource.

Our target market is, initially, appraisers, bankers, lawyers, and human resource professionals.

  • The Appraisal Institute has told us that they are actively seeking advanced-level curricula to train their appraisers.
  • Several banks have approached us about doing Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) training for non-appraisers.
  • A number of our clients have asked whether we can do seminars on various real estate and litigation topics.

Two upcoming courses include Advanced Statistical Analysis and USPAP for Non-Appraisers.

Advanced Statistical Analysis will provide learners with advanced knowledge and practical application of statistical analysis. It goes well beyond the ‘101’ courses commonly available, yet it does not require a background in statistics. The course will review a variety of advanced statistical techniques and discuss situations in which each technique would be used, the assumptions made by each method, how to set up the analysis, and how to interpret the results. The course includes a broad range of techniques for predicting both continuous and categorical outcomes, as well as methods to cluster cases, create statistical groupings of variables, and find similar cases using a large set of variables.

The acronym USPAP is a familiar one to people in the real estate industry, but those who are not appraisers may have only a vague understanding of exactly what this term means. USPAP is the generally accepted set of standards for professional appraisal practice in the United States and is required to be followed in most instances. The USPAP class will take advantage of Dr. Kilpatrick’s status as an AQB Certified USPAP Instructor certified by the Appraiser Qualifications Board (AQB) and provide an opportunity to learn about this professional standard and how it affects anyone who works with the real estate industry.

The CE/T unit of Greenfield Advisors LLC specializes in small-scale training so that our clients get individual attention. Our seminars are unique, high quality, and have practical applications. By taking advantage of the unique pool of knowledge within our professional staff, we can offer creative seminars to a wide audience. We can also take advantage of our professional relationships with organizations such as the Appraisal Institute and the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) to increase our visibility nationwide.

– Lisa Mc Sherry