Training
Nationwide, On-Site VFD Training
We bring the hardware, the instructor, and the materials to the plant that owns the equipment.
The programs
Intermediate and Advanced VFD Training
VFDs don't fail. Installations fail them.
This is the technical program that takes field technicians, maintenance engineers, and controls professionals from commissioning fundamentals through advanced PID tuning and industrial communications. Across the two-day core, students wire the motor model, run first rotation, configure for three different load profiles, and work real fault scenarios built from captured trend data and parameter snapshots, the way a technician reasons about a trip nobody witnessed. Seven hands-on labs in the core, fourteen across the full program. Every student touches the hardware.
Day 3 extends into advanced PID tuning for heating, cooling, and pressure processes, drive operation at the extremes, Modbus TCP worked directly from the register map, protocol mapping across Ethernet/IP and PROFINET, and AI-assisted diagnostics at professional depth.
Covers industrial, water, refrigeration, and HVAC applications. Built for field technicians and electricians, plant and maintenance engineers, system integrators, industrial distribution specialists, and controls technicians.
Each seat includes a copy of Before the First Fault: A Field Guide to VFD Installation and Reliability, access to VFD Mentor as a benefit of attending, and a Certificate of Completion. Classroom delivery is included within 600 miles of Sioux Falls.
VFD Basics for Water and Wastewater Systems
The drives run your pumps. This is the day your operators learn what the drives are actually doing.
A one-day, hands-on introduction built for water and wastewater operators, utility maintenance staff, and rural water systems. What a drive does to the power feeding a pump motor. Why installations, not drives, cause most failures. The setup decisions that protect pumps, motors, and thrust bearings. How to read what a drive is telling you when it trips at 2 AM, and what to record before you reset it.
Students work on live drives: entering motor data, running a first start, and walking real fault scenarios. 7.0 documented contact hours with a scored before-and-after assessment. Approved for operator continuing education in North Dakota, Minnesota, Wyoming, Utah and North Carolina, and the certificate meets self-submission requirements in 10 more states. Every attendee receives a certificate of completion stating exact contact hours and the state course or catalog number wherever one is assigned.
Each seat includes a copy of Before the First Fault: A Field Guide to VFD Installation and Reliability and a Certificate of Completion. Classroom delivery is included within 600 miles of Sioux Falls.
Request a quote or ask a question
You get a reply within 1 business day from a person. If it is a training request, that reply carries seat math and a proposed agenda, and it is your quote.
Wayward Leaders® is a veteran-owned VFD training practice. We teach maintenance teams and plant electricians to install, commission, and troubleshoot variable frequency drives correctly, in person, at the plant that owns the equipment, anywhere in the United States.
Every class ends with a scored competency assessment. The plant gets a way to prove what each technician can do, not a roster of who sat in the room.
The instruction is field-trained. It is drawn from nearly 8,000 VFD, power, and motor documents and from more than 750 commissioned drives captured through personal field experience and data collection. Carl Lee Tolbert, PhD, CMRP, and ATD Master Trainer™, leads it. He has delivered more than 5,000 hours of VFD instruction across 30 years and trained 8,000 industrial professionals, from International Paper to the U.S. Navy.
The premise is simple: VFDs do not fail. Installations fail them. The curriculum is built backward from that.
Installation, commissioning, troubleshooting, and fault diagnosis guides are published openly at waywardleaders.com.
Continuing education credit
Every program delivers documented instructional contact hours, backed by a timed agenda, a scored before-and-after assessment, and a certificate stating exact hours. 13.5 across the two-day VFD core, 19 with Day 3, 7.0 for the Basics day.
For water and wastewater operators, a class can earn credit in 21 states. The courses are approved in 5, the certificate meets self-submission requirements in 10, and the application for 6 more is filled out and goes in the day you book.
| Who | What the hours count toward | Provider approval |
|---|---|---|
| Professional engineers | PDH credit across the delivery footprint: South Dakota, North Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, Montana, Wyoming. | Not required. Every one of those boards runs on self-selection and self-report. |
| CMRP and CMRT holders | SMRP recertification under the Equipment Reliability pillar. | Not required. |
| ASQ CRE, ISA CCST and CAP, NICET, SME CMfgT and CMfgE, NATE, STLE, IFPS, PMI PMP | Recertification units or professional development points, depending on the body. | Not required. Each accepts relevant training from any qualified provider. |
| Water and wastewater operators | State operator credit in 21 states: 15 count today, 6 more file the day you book. | Approved in North Dakota, Minnesota, Wyoming, Utah and North Carolina. Self-submitted in 10 more states. |
Eligibility. Final determination of credit always rests with each board or certifying body. We use the word approved only where a state has granted approval and eligible where the rules allow the credit, and every attendee gets the documentation to back the claim. Wayward Leaders is also an approved Government Contractor.
The rules are different for every credential your crew holds, so the detail sits on its own page: where these hours actually count, state by state, with every approved course number, the licensed electrician requirements, and where approval is still pending.
What every program includes
- Live industrial equipmentReal drives, relays, sensors, and contactors. Every student gets hands-on time with the hardware they will meet in the field.
- Small classes8 to 16 students per session, maximum 12 for the Basics day. Nobody hides in the back row.
- Brand-agnostic curriculumWe teach the technology, not the brand. It transfers to whatever equipment you actually run.
- A PhD instructor who has done the workThirty-plus years of industrial automation. Students reason through real problems in real time, and everyone earns the answer.
- Purpose-built materialsEach program is anchored by a published book or field guide written for the curriculum.
- Documented outcomesScored baseline and post-training assessments on every class, with a competency report to the client within five business days.
- We come to youYou provide coffee, lunch, and the location. Pricing is built to be simple: you know the full cost before you book. Within 600 miles of Sioux Falls, the instructor, the case rigs with live drives, and every student's materials are in the seat price. Everywhere else in the United States, one flat classroom delivery fee of $2,000 per visit covers the trip, and two classes in the same visit still carry one fee.
Documented outcomes has its own page: how the pre-test and post-test work, what the competency report contains, and where the contact hours go for PDH, CMRP and state licensing.
Why Wayward Leaders
Practitioner-led rather than theory-led, brand-agnostic, and measured every time. The record behind that:
- 30+years inside industrial automation, teaching through most of them.
- 8,000+professionals trained, from more than 200 organizations.
- 5,000documented hours of instruction delivered.
- 13%of training programs industry-wide measure outcomes for every participant. We do it on every class.
- <$120is the 2026 ATD benchmark per learning hour. Ours run $700 a day, which works out to $100 to $111 an hour.
- 3technical books and 22 published articles standing behind the curriculum.
Credentials: PhD, CMRP, ATD Master Trainer™, faculty appointments at Truett McConnell University, University of Sioux Falls, and Columbia International University.
Making the case internally
If you have to justify the spend to somebody above you, the numbers are worth reading before you write the request. The ROI of VFD training works through replacement cost, the failure math, and which of the widely quoted training statistics actually hold up.
Who has attended
The room has held Fortune 500 manufacturers, global drive OEMs, municipal utilities, federal agencies, and the U.S. military. A partial list by sector:
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Pulp, paper and packaging
International Paper · Graphic Packaging · Smurfit Stone · Jackson Paper · Rayonier · Solo Cup · Berry Plastics · D&W Fine Pack · Fabri-Kal · Polyglass
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Food, beverage and agriculture
Coca-Cola · PepsiCo · Kellogg's · M&M Mars · ADM · Morton Salt · Imperial Sugar · American Crystal Sugar · Diamond Crystal · Gold Kist · POET
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Metals, steel and wire
Nucor · Gerdau Ameristeel · Southwire · Prysmian · Insteel · Bekaert · National Standard · Sandvik · Kennametal
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Building products and minerals
USG · National Gypsum · Cardinal Glass · National Cement · Johns Manville · Thermal Ceramics · JM Huber · Mulcoa
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Textiles and flooring
Shaw Industries · Mohawk · Milliken · Glen Raven · Mount Vernon Mills · Inman Mills · Central Textiles · 1888 Mills · Skaps Industries · Swift Denim
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Chemicals and consumer products
Procter & Gamble · Clorox · Ashland Chemical · Freudenberg · Pharmaworks
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Heavy industry, OEM and automation
Caterpillar · Bridgestone · Textron · Gulfstream · ABB · Baldor · WEG · SEW-Eurodrive · SKF · Dodge · Hill Phoenix
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Energy, entertainment and more
Southern Company · Disney · Universal Studios · SeaWorld · Booz Allen Hamilton · Jacobs
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Municipal water and power
Municipal water, wastewater, and power utilities across the country, too many to list.
Listing indicates that personnel from these organizations have attended training delivered by Dr. Tolbert; it does not imply endorsement. Training has also been delivered to personnel from federal agencies and the U.S. military.
Custom training development
When your team needs training that does not exist on the shelf, we build it, partnering with your subject matter experts to design curriculum, materials, and measurement that hold up in the plant. Established instructional design methodology, ADDIE and SAM, plus thirty-plus years of operating experience inside industrial environments.
New program development, redesign of an existing program, co-development with your own SMEs, or certification and competency assessment design. Engagements run 90 to 180 days, quoted per engagement.
For data center operators there is a dedicated practice: operator qualification programs, drives and cooling reliability training, and a 1-day Critical Cooling VFDs class. It has its own page.
For integrators, distributors, and rep agencies
Training sells projects and keeps customers. Write it into a capital project bid as a line item and we supply spec-ready language and a firm quoted price for your submittal. Host and resell our programs under your own banner, continuing education credit included. Or bring us the opportunity and we handle the delivery.
Two commitments come standard. Every application the classroom turns up, sizing questions, upgrade candidates, panel projects, goes back to your team in writing. And in this capacity we sell training only: no drives, no motors, no panels, never a quote against your line card.
Partner pricing is quoted per engagement rather than published, and one question sets the rate: who handles the billing.