Writing On Spec

Here's the text of a sidebar for an article I'm hoping to write for Td&T. The article itself is about the launch of the ETCP Rigging Certification. The sidebar is more about my own journey and a thank you for the work that was done.

Think they'll use it?

For many people involved with the upcoming certification program, this November will be like the High School graduation for a family friend we’ve all watched grow up. It’s been so long, we can hardly believe he’s all grown up. I’ve had a remarkable vantage to watch the development of the program. Consider this plethora of acronyms a toast at the ETCP graduation party.

My association with theatrical certification began like this:

In theatre production, individuals often undertake tasks simply because they are the labor available. Currently the only indications of technical competence are experience, recommendations, union affiliation, and education. None of these are particularly dependable. Theatre technicians often vouch for their own skill level. The questionable validity of the peer reference limits a manager’s ability to verify skill levels (for hiring or for task assignment). Even an apparently reliable personal reference cannot establish competence with the certainty of a professional license or board certification. Union affiliation and education level can also be unreliable.

In other industries, many project participants are licensed or certified. Licensed architects design buildings. Licensed engineers detail their designs, and licensed electricians and contractors execute these details. Licensing and certification help to assure consumers a regulated quality of work, and assure managers a defined level of skill. Certification also provides governing bodies a means of assuring public safety. For a multitude of reasons, certification practices have evolved within industry over many years. Theatre could benefit by learning from this process.

That’s the beginning of an abstract to a research project in graduate school. All in all the most interesting bit of information to come from that research came from an industry survey which revealed that on the whole people were interested in the idea of a certification for certain theatre technicians. The scope of the survey was really somewhat small, but the finding turned out to be valid anyway.

Fast forward a couple years to a USITT conference in Long Beach, California. Out of the blue someone had contacted me about this research a proffered an invitation to the ESTA meetings concurrent with the conference. At this point I met the ESTA CPC, the Certification Program Committee. In fact, I was late to the party. While I has been raising a ruckus in my grad school sandbox, this ESTA committee and the professionals that comprised it were actually trying to get something done in the real world. At this meeting I learned that they had been working for quite some time and were preparing to do their own survey and were going to circulate it to a sample that had been impossible for me. I nervously applied for membership of what I felt was a group that was way over my head. To my amazement I was accepted.

Bit by bit the business of the CPC accelerated, slowly at first, but always building energy as progress was made. Operating rules were put in place and then task groups were formed to suggest professionals to head up working groups in specific disciplines. After a cycle of meetings we had proposals for working groups and working group chairs. I managed to go from the CPC to the task group and then to the Rigging Skills Working group.

The RSWG did an amazing amount of work. Coming together four times a year and completing homework assignments in between, the working group looked at a vast array of questions: who should be certified, what level of person, are there already existing certifications, who should be eligible, what should the program structure be, and just what is this body of knowledge that we are talking about anyway? We all learned the subtle differences between licensure, registration, certificate, and certification. The work was rigorous, time consuming, detailed, contentious, and enlightening. Everyone in the project worked very hard for a cause they very much believed in. A quote from a colleague’s email that I will never forget comes to mind: “These discussions are outstanding. It will go much faster if everyone would understand that I am right.” Though people did not see eye to eye in every instance, the work of the group as a whole was very much collegial and remarkably complete.

While the RSWG was working, things were also hopping at the ESTA office. The Entertainment Technician Certification Program was born. The ETCP Certification Council replaced the CPC as the organizing body and things really got moving. The Council set to work coming up with the funding that would be required to make the program a reality, and looked for a facilitator to assist putting the program together. Eventually we met the people at Applied Measurement Professionals of Kansas City.

Working with AMP, the chairs of the Rigging Skills Working Group set out to put together yet another pool of professionals, the Subject Matter Experts. Through what feels like an amazing stretch of good fortune I found myself an SME. More dedicated riggers, more meetings, more trips, and a lot of KC Barbeque were all part of the next phase. The SME’s finally determined the focus of the certification, came up with two rigorous job descriptions, one for arena and another for theatrical each with their own specific content, and then set out to write exams.

ESTA, CPC, RSWG, ETCP, AMP, SME, its been a very long road, and an army of talented and dedicated people have given their best work to see the ETCP Arena and Theatrical Rigging Certifications come to fruition this fall. I certainly hope I speak for the industry as a whole when I say thank you to all of them for their work, and good luck to the ETCP with their first exams at LDI and for the future of the program after.

The ETCP Rigging SME’s:

Roy Bickel
John Bleich
Eddie Blue
David Boevers
Olan Cottrill
James Doherty
Harry Donovan
Glenn Hufford
Edward Kish
Stephane Mayrand
Joseph McGeough
Brian Miller
Walter Murphy
Rocky Paulson
G. Anthony Phillips
Eddie Raymond
Michael Reed
Bill Sapsis
Peter Scheu
Karen Seifried
Scott Sloan
Sammy Stokes
Jack Suesse

The ESTA RSWG:

Co-Chairs

Rocky Paulson, Stage Rigging, A Freeman Company

Eddie Raymond, IATSE Local 16

Bill Sapsis, Sapsis Rigging, Inc.

Principal, Alternate and Individual Members

Patrick Bash, IATSE Local 720

F. Robert Bauer, F.R. Bauer & Associates, LLC

David Boevers, Carnegie Mellon University

Olan Cottrill, Staging Productions, Inc.

Harry Donovan, Donovan Rigging, Inc.

Jerry Gorrell, City of Phoenix - Phoenix Stages

Dean Hart, Stage Rigging, Inc.

Kent Jorgensen, IATSE Local 80

Nevin Kleege, Kleege Industries

Baer Long, Ninja Rigging

William Maiman

Shawn Nolan, Entertainment Structures Group

J. Smith, National Production Services, Inc.

Harvey Sweet, LVH Entertainment Systems

Richard Thompson, Thompson Associates

Stephen Vanciel

Observer Members
Michael Akrep, Polar Focus, Inc.

Keith Bohn, Tomcat USA, Inc.

Dan Culhane, Secoa

Dr. Randy Davidson, Risk International & Associates, Inc.

Don Dimitroff, Columbus McKinnon Corp.

Ron Epp, IATSE Local 461

Robert, Grenier Ocean State Rigging Systems, Inc.

Delbert Hall, Hall Associates, Inc.

Bradford A. Kagel, National Production Services, Inc.

Jo - Anna Kamorin-Lloyd

Dennis King, Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers

Eddie Kramer, IATSE Local 1

Ken Romaine, PRG

Louis Therrien, Production Safety Services, Inc.

Jim Utterback, Local 22, IATSE Training

John Van Lennep, Theatrix, Inc.

Tim Wade, IATSE Local 600

Steve Zapytowski, Kent State University School of Theatre and Dance