TVIB News Tava Foret

TVIB STAFF NEWS: New Team Member

Please join the rest of the staff and me in welcoming a new member to the TVIB team. Maia Nendza recently joined TVIB as the Operations Coordinator for the Upper Fleet. Maia jumped right in and began training with Lindsey Brown and Cindy Hunsaker to learn the ins and outs of the job.  Maia is taking over for Cindy who was recently promoted to Instructional Designer in our Member Services group.

Maia has embraced various professional roles such as 11 years of public-school education teaching and administration, providing strategic support and youth mentorship for three diversely demographic school districts. She also held additional support roles in financial risk management and political campaign organizations in Washington D.C.

Maia was born in Carlisle, PA living in a multitude of places as an Army child. She attended the University of Pittsburgh and Lake Michigan College studying business management. Between growing up in a military family and being a dedicated Coast Guard wife of two decades she has traveled to nearly every state in America and the providences of Canada, embracing the personal and professional challenges associated with frequent relocations as a military family.  She has lived in 7 geographically different locations from the tropics of Key West to the frigid waters of Lake Michigan. Most recently she moved to League City, TX from Sitka, Alaska. Her husband Bob is a Chief Warrant Officer serving as the Aids to Navigation Program Manager for Sector Houston-Galveston. She has two tea teenage boys, Joseph and Benjamin (16), and is “dog mom” to a four-year-old chocolate lab, Finn.

As a Coast Guard wife, Maia developed a passion for volunteering within the community, including the Coast Guard Ombudsman program, Vice President of Coast Guard Spouses and Women’s Association, and USA Swimming.  In her free time, she enjoys boating, hiking, fishing, traveling, knitting, trying to grow a garden in Texas, and anything involving the outdoors.

Maia will work remotely in the greater Houston area. If you haven’t had the pleasure of speaking with Maia yet, please be sure to welcome her when you get a chance, you will find her contact information on the Our Staff page on our website.

TVIB STAFF NEWS: Internal Promotion

BIG NEWS!  We’re excited to announce that Cindy Hunsaker has been promoted to Instructional Designer, moving from the Operations Department to Member Services. Cindy holds a Bachelor of Science in Education with minors in French and English Literature. She recently completed a certification as a Master Instructional Designer and is eager to begin applying the adult learning concepts.

Please join us in congratulating Cindy on her new position, we’re glad to welcome her back into training in a development role.  We anticipate that with the knowledge gained while working in Operations, Cindy will bring her unique perspective to enhancing our current training offerings and developing new programs.

We’ll be working to introduce the new Operations Coordinator for the Upper Fleet next week and have a solid transition plan in place that will keep customer service at the forefront.

Let’s Get Personal: The Return to In-Person Training

In response to the challenges brought on by Covid, our team quickly transitioned our training from in-person classes to virtual delivery. As we anticipate the return to live, in-person courses, TVIB believes it is important to think about what we have done over the past three years.

In 2020 we pivoted overnight and (along with our students) learned to embrace virtual training. We worked to deliver an interactive, content-rich and engaging learning experience for our students and continued to develop new material and modules for our classes. We were driven to fulfill our mandate to provide the industry’s best training and are proud to say that, thanks to our students and staff, our classes continued non-stop throughout the pandemic.

As we return to the classroom, it’s important to remember the advantages of face-to-face learning:

 

  • In-person training fosters discussions, collaboration and feedback, and promotes active participation and engagement. An environment dedicated solely to learning limits distraction and encourages active engagement.
  • The energy of face-to-face interactions creates an atmosphere that encourages teamwork, peer support, and a sense of community among participants. It is hard to overstate the value of asking someone a question directly vs. sending a chat message.
  • In-person training enables trainers to gauge learners’ understanding, tailor their approach and create a tailored learning experience. Non-verbal cues (a look of disinterest, fidgeting, etc.) from students are signs an instructor might want to change course, and these are difficult to interpret in a virtual classroom.
  • In-person training environments provide opportunities for networking. Networking is one of the most valuable things to come from in-person training, but it is nearly impossible to do in a virtual classroom setting. Professional opportunities that might have organically arisen from conversation are lost.
  • Face-to-face training allows students to receive immediate support, addressing learners’ questions in real-time.

 

We look forward to returning to face-to-face instruction: TVIB believes that in-person training is a valuable option, and the ability to form connections and network with like-minded professionals presents advantages that go well beyond instruction. We will continue to assess the training needs of our customers and, as THE TPO YOU KNOW AND TRUST, we welcome your feedback as we transition back to in-person instruction.