Although most ATI blogs are written for the benefit of students or prospective students, this one is written for the benefit of instructors or prospective instructors.  It should be of interest to students as well as instructors though, as students want to know about their instructors, and even more importantly, today’s student may become tomorrow’s instructor.

As anyone who reads the news knows, many companies are having trouble finding qualified and motivated people to work for them.  Although ATI is blessed with a large cadre of great instructors, we are always looking for new blood, and it can be difficult at times to find new instructors, particularly during holiday seasons when people have more important things to worry about.

So, I was meditating last night, thinking about the attributes that I normally associate with a good instructor, or that I normally look for in a person that we may want to hire as an instructor.  If we can come up with list of those attributes, then we simply need to find a person that has all of those attributes, and hire that person.  Sounds simple.  So, let’s talk about attributes.

First, the person needs to be a Subject Matter Expert on Rocket Science.  Based on one of our current needs, SMEs in Aerodynamic Propulsion and GPS would be very desirable.

Second, the person needs to be highly organized and a very hard worker, for obvious reasons.  The instructor should realize that the demand for classes is not always the same, so there may be very busy times of the year, and there may be slow times.

Third, the person has to like students, and he must enjoy working with students.

Fourth, the person should be mature, with lots of experience, and a demonstrated ability to do his job year after year.

Fifth, the person has to be willing to do some marketing, and help ATI talk to prospective students during the run-up to the course, and maybe even talk to students during our free sessions.

Sixth, the person might live locally in the Baltimore/Washington area, but that is not a hard requirement.  The person can live in very remote location and he can travel as required to meet with students.

With this list in mind, I went to our Data base of a three zillion prospective instructors, and I found a single person that has every one of our desired attributes.  So, let me describe this person named Nick.  For confidentiality reasons, I will not share his last name.  I will talk a little about how he demonstrates each of the attributes.

Nick is an expert in Aerial Ship Design and Operations, in fact, he drives his Ship around annually, and relies on GPS to make a huge number of stops.  Nick is very organized and a hard worker, as demonstrated by the huge number of stops associated with the annual trip that he makes in his Air Ship.  Nick loves working with kids and students and enjoys making them happy.  Nick usually spends the month leading up to his annual trip meeting with kids that he plans to visit on the night of his trip.  At these pre-trip meetings, he and the kids often discuss goals and expectations, so Nick can be better prepared for the start of his trip.  Lastly, although Nick lives in a very remote place, he is very willing to travel great distances, and he has demonstrated that year after year, for so many years.

I tried to contact Nick and see if we can get him to teach for us, but his voice mail indicated that he was too busy to talk to me, but that I should call him back after Christmas when his schedule will be much lighter.  I did not want to wait that long to talk to him, so I decided to visit him, but was unable to find any good deals on flights to his home at the North Pole.

Please take a look at our schedule of upcoming classes here.  Although you will not see Nick’s classes listed yet, please check back often after the holidays to see if we were successful hiring him.

On a serious note, ATI really is always looking for new instructors.  If you think you would like to teach for us, please let us know, so we can talk more about it.

ATI wishes everyone a very happy upcoming holiday season.  We are always here to help you, even during this very busy holiday season.