CMA Trains 400 At IWF 2012 Seminars

Dave Grulke MILWAUKEE, WI - Nearly 400 custom woodworking shop owners and managers, industry professionals and suppliers attended its inaugural expanded educational sessions at IWF in Atlanta last week. These seminars and classes are part of the CMA’s new professional certification program.

We’ve obviously struck a chord within the woodworking industry With most of the attendees at our IWF live sessions coming from outside the CMA’s membership, it seems the executive level management training we are offering is very much needed and desired by shop owners and managers. Considering this program didn’t exist a year ago, we’re absolutely elated with the response on this brand new education and credentialing program.”

Tracy Yarborough, the CMA's newly elected president, says “The CMA began this process with its own membership in mind. After we began gathering the curriculum we saw the value in the information and wanted to provide this program to all professional cabinetmaking and woodworking shops. While a good portion comes from our own members and their experiences from the world of hard knocks, we’ve also tapped into experts from inside and beyond the woodworking world to provide this education.”

The CMA’s professional certification program is designed to provide in depth education on management perspectives of running the entire custom woodworking business. Successful applicants from a variety of roles in managing a woodworking enterprise (from foreman level and up to senior managers and owners) will exhibit either advanced knowledge or expert knowledge in a variety of topics before a certification is awarded to them at either of the two levels offered.

It certifies the individual, not the business or the products they make, and provides the knowledge needed to own and operate an ethical, sustainable and profitable woodworking business. This program is a cohesive set of educational sessions with a goal of attaining a valuable acknowledgement of one’s accomplishments in the form of a professional designation. It provides an independent credential for successful enrollees that will become an industry benchmark in the very near future. We invite industry participation in using educational materials they may have already developed for CMA accreditation.

Course work now completed and coming on line (curriculum sessions) will be in excess of 50 hours of sessions at both the junior and master levels. While the CMA’s certification program doesn’t require attendance at any particular curriculum session, it does require that an enrollee passes an omnibus test at the end. The knowledge needed to pass the test is contained in the curriculum sessions. It also requires a commitment from each enrollee to attend a minimum of 4 hours per year of CMA continuing education units (CEUs) from the time they first enroll.