Where These Hours Actually Count

Most training pages answer the continuing education question with the word approved and leave you to work out who approved it, for which credential, and whether it holds in your state. The rules are different for every credential your crew holds, so a single word does not answer the question even when it happens to be true.

What follows goes credential by credential, starting with water and wastewater operators, because that is where a state board decides the answer.

Water and wastewater operators: 21 states

In 15 of those states the hours count today, and in the other 6 the application goes in the day a class is booked there. Wayward Leaders courses are approved for operator continuing education in North Dakota, Minnesota, Wyoming, Utah and North Carolina, with applications filed or under review in 12 more states. In the 10 states where operators self-submit their own training, every attendee receives a certificate and timed agenda that meet those programs' documentation requirements.

Where the courses are approved

All 4 courses are approved in each of those 5 states, which makes 20 course approvals with every hour we asked for granted and no rejections so far. These are the titles exactly as filed, and they are the titles that print on the certificate:

1. Before the First Fault: VFD Basics for Water and Wastewater Systems, 1 day, 7.0 contact hours
2. VFD Installation Best Practices for Water and Wastewater Systems, 1.0 hour
3. ChatGPT for Electrical and Mechanical Troubleshooting, 1.0 hour
4. The Electric Motor and VFD Combination, 1.0 hour

Self-submit states

These states do not pre-approve providers. The operator submits the Wayward Leaders certificate and timed agenda to their own program, and that documentation meets these states' operator self-submission requirements: Ohio, Arizona, Idaho, California (water), Virginia, South Carolina, Alabama, Delaware, Connecticut (wastewater), New Hampshire.

Ready to file on your booking

These states need a class date before anything can be filed. The application is already filled out and goes in the day you book a class there: Minnesota (wastewater), Missouri, Kansas, Montana, Oklahoma, Indiana.

Applications filed or under review

These states have the application in hand, and none of them is described here as approved until the board says so: Kentucky, South Dakota, Iowa, Nebraska, Michigan (wastewater), Illinois, Wisconsin, North Carolina (wastewater), Alaska, Nevada, Texas (Basics), Utah (drinking water).

Professional engineers: no approval required, in any state

Every state in the delivery footprint requires continuing education for professional engineers, and not one of them pre-approves providers. Engineers self-select their coursework and self-report it. There is no application, no provider number, and nothing for a training company to be granted.

That means the only thing standing between a class and a PDH claim is documentation, and documentation is the part that is already handled. Every certificate states exact contact hours: 13.5 across the two-day core, 19 with Day 3, 7.0 for the one-day water and wastewater program. Hours are computed from a timed agenda with breaks and meals excluded.

Requirements run 24 to 30 hours per two-year cycle across the footprint: South Dakota, North Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, Montana and Wyoming.

Several of those states set aside part of the requirement for particular categories, and a hands-on drive class counts toward the technical ones:

• Wisconsin requires at least 13 live or interactive hours. An on-site class is live by definition.
• North Dakota requires at least 20 technical hours.
• Kansas requires at least 24 hours related to health, safety and welfare.
• Ohio reserves 2 hours for ethics, and Illinois reserves 3 core hours. A drive class does not count toward either, so an engineer still needs those hours from somewhere else.

Live technical instruction counts toward the technical and health, safety and welfare categories in every state in the footprint, and those are the hours an engineer has the hardest time finding in a webinar.

CMRP and CMRT: no approval required, nationally

SMRP recertification runs 50 hours over three years and accepts relevant third-party training with no provider approval of any kind. Drive installation, commissioning and fault diagnosis sit under the Equipment Reliability pillar.

It works the same way PDH does, and the certificate with its stated contact hours is all the holder needs to submit.

Other credentials that accept third-party training

ASQ CRE, ISA CCST and CAP, NICET, SME CMfgT and CMfgE, NATE, STLE, IFPS, and PMI PMP all accept relevant training from any qualified provider, as recertification units or professional development points depending on the body. None of them requires a provider to be pre-approved.

Licensed electricians: the non-code hours are the hard ones

Electrician continuing education is a real program in nine states in the footprint: South Dakota, North Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, Wisconsin, Montana, Wyoming and Kentucky. Ohio runs one for contractors, and in Kansas it is handled at county level. Indiana, Illinois and Missouri have no state electrician continuing education at all.

In most of those states roughly half the required hours are reserved for code. Code update classes are easy to find, because nearly every provider runs one, but far fewer offer non-code technical hours worth a journeyman's afternoon, and that second half is where electricians come up short.

A drive class fits in that second half. These states require course approval, and electrician continuing education filings are in progress in 5 of them, but no board has approved one yet, so none is claimed here. Ask about your state when you book and you will get where that filing stands that week.

What you actually receive

Every one of these credits is claimed on paperwork, and this is what each attendee and each client walks away with.

• A Certificate of Completion stating exact contact hours, computed from a timed agenda with breaks and meals excluded, and carrying the state course or catalog number wherever one is assigned. A board wants a number of hours, and a line that says two-day class does not give it one.
• The timed agenda itself, which is the document every state application is built from, the one self-submitting operators file with their certificate, and the one a board asks for if a submission is questioned.
• A scored competency report to the client within five business days, which is separate from credit but is what a manager is asked for when the training budget comes up. How the assessment works.
• Rosters reported and retained by Wayward Leaders, because several states require them after each class and on their own schedule.

Eligibility. Final determination of credit always rests with each board or certifying body. This page uses 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.