MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA, US — The Grain Elevator and Processing Society (GEAPS) has announced plans to revitalize and expand the educational offerings it provides to grain handling and processing workers. The announcement comes in the wake of Kansas State University announcing its 15-year partnership with GEAPS is coming to an end on Jan. 1, 2021.

GEAPS, which recently unveiled a new partnership with the American Feed Industry Association, said it is targeting new partnerships that focus on bringing more value to members of the organization. Potential partnerships include upcoming collaborations with new universities, subject matter experts and specialty companies that serve the industry.

“Education and professional development are an important part of what GEAPS does,” said Jeff Jones, president of GEAPS International. “This has been a challenging year for our organization, and our board has taken a long look at all of our programs and services to evaluate the value they provide to members and the industry. We determined that we needed to identify new partners and collaborators, to offer the best training in the most effective formats. We are committed to finding the best partners in the industry, in government and academia to accomplish that goal.”

As part of the new educational structure, GEAPS said it will continue to offer the Distance Education Program courses previously offered in conjunction with Kansas State University.

“We had a lot of success working with Kansas State University,” said Steve Records, executive director of GEAPS. “Our joint distance education training program won multiple awards for excellence, but the program saw an unacceptable decline in participation in recent years. Kansas State University was a great partner, but the needs of our members and the industry overall have changed over the past 13 years and GEAPS must change accordingly.”

Records said GEAPS is focused on updating its program to be more focused on user experience by being fully on-demand in the future and responsive to members’ needs by adhering less to a rigid higher academia approach.

“Not only will we be engaging more people and organizations to provide content and education, we will do so in a more affordable manner to better serve our members and provide more value to our member companies,” he said.

GEAPS said it will begin by offering four courses in January, and in subsequent months the association’s entire catalog of offerings will be made available online and on demand.

To learn more and register for courses, visit www.geaps.com/distance.