Job Fair Will Give Students, Employers A Chance To Size Up One Another

Spokane-area institutions of higher education are cooperating to host a joint job fair next week.

Partnership in Employment Expo ‘97 is designed to help students and alumni make connections with large groups of prospective employers, according to Eastern Washington University’s news bureau.

Five colleges and universities - Eastern Washington, Washington State, Gonzaga, Whitworth and Whitman - plan to have 80 employers on hand to discuss full-time employment opportunities, co-op options, internship possibilities and part-time summer work.

The exposition is scheduled from 3 to 7 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 25, at Cavanaugh’s Inn at the Park. Parking and admission are free.

Sales college branches out, relocates

“The nation’s first ‘retail skills center’ is opening in April at the mall in King of Prussia, near Philadelphia,” Jane Applegate of the Los Angeles Times reported in her syndicated column Feb. 10 in The Spokesman-Review.

That is news, indeed, to Kim Cooper.

“I thought we opened the first retail skills center four years ago this March in Spokane,” said the founder of American Sales College.

“It sounds like these newcomers are taking more of a community college tack,” Cooper said, “whereas we offer a fast track, five-week, intensive training, private-school approach.

“We can teach at our classrooms or take our curricula on site and customize training for individual clients. But there’s no getting around the fact that we are an established retail skills training center.

“We also are a business skills center that offers training in sales and management,” Cooper added. “And we definitely are in a growth mode. We have many satisfied retail and general business customers in Spokane, Seattle and Portland,” he said, “and we are looking to expand nationally.

“We have just registered a trade name for another division of our company called the Health Care Leadership Institute.”

The rigors of earning high-powered medical degrees leave doctors little time to learn business management, Cooper notes. Hence, small practices run a high risk of being gobbled up by health care giants with the necessary management expertise.

Also, even in managed care, there is growing recognition patients can choose between physicians, “which is making doctors painfully aware of their shortcomings in the area of public service.”

Hence, says Cooper, the institute will also offer courses in patient satisfaction - in essence customer service for doctors and their staffs. “I fired my own doctor some months ago,” he said, “for poor service, lack of attention, and lack of communication.”

To accommodate doctors’ hectic schedules, the Health Care Leadership Institute will primarily offer intensive, capsuled training as opposed to the extended courses presented by American Sales College.

The institute has formed an association with medical management consultant John Driscoll, former administrator of the Spokane Ear, Nose & Throat Clinic.

The Health Care Leadership Institute will start offering courses within the next six weeks.

In addition to launching the institute, Cooper’s company this week began work on a customized training program for AMS Services Inc., one of the nation’s largest providers of software for the insurance industry. The Coeur d’Alene company’s clients include 40,000 of the country’s 44,000 independent insurance agencies.

Cooper’s company has just added three full-time staffers and is recruiting two more. Several contract trainers also have been signed.

Finally, American Sales College has just completed a move from 901 E. Second to 3102 E. Trent.

Few seek disaster unemployment aid

Many Eastern Washington residents knocked out of work by this winter’s severe storms could be missing an opportunity to collect Disaster Unemployment Assistance.

Workers who have been out of work as a result of severe storms beginning Dec. 26 may be eligible, according to the State Employment Security Department. Benefits are available in 18 counties, but few people have applied, officials report.

The assistance is for persons, including the self-employed, who lost work as a direct result of a weather disaster and who don’t qualify for regular unemployment benefits.

Payments range from $104 to $365 a week. Claims may be filed at any Employment Security Job Service Center. Filing deadlines are March 5 in Spokane and Yakima counties, and March 13 in Asotin and Pend Oreille counties.

, DataTimes MEMO: Associate Editor Frank Bartel writes a notes column each Wednesday. If you have business items of regional interest for future columns, call 459-5467 or fax 459-5482.

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Frank Bartel The Spokesman-Review