About this episode
Jim Cermak, product training manager at Driverge and a CTAA PASS master trainer based in Cleveland, Ohio, puts roughly 800 people a year through training, about 500 of them on PASS, and has taught in 37 states. PASS runs about nine hours: four online through the CTAA covering professional conduct, autism, seizures and bio spills, then five to six in person, three of those classroom and the rest hands-on at the vehicle. Certification lasts two years, and one client that had chased a hospital contract four years running won it the first year its drivers were certified.
Key takeaways
- Roughly 10,000 people a year take PASS across the United States. Cermak accounts for about 500 of them, running classes that average five to six trainees at a time.
- PASS Basic, the four-hour online half, skips securement entirely and instead covers professional presentation, riders on the autism spectrum, seizures, and cleaning a bio spill so the vehicle stays in service.
- In the hands-on half every trainee takes a turn in the wheelchair, riding the lift and being belted in, so drivers feel how physical and intimate securement actually is before doing it for real.
- Certification runs two years with an online recertification of about an hour to 90 minutes. Cermak is a PASS master trainer, so he can certify a company's own in-house trainer instead.
- Onsite training needs about five or six people minimum. Below that Cermak pools several companies at a Mobility Works location, the sister company with roughly 100 sites nationwide.
Chapters
- 0:00 Introduction
- 0:25 How Jim Cermak got into driver training
- 3:57 What is PASS driver training?
- 9:21 What it takes to get PASS training
- 23:33 Training for small NEMT businesses
- 28:21 Business benefits from driver training
- 35:58 RUN BAMBI RUN!!
