Training nets a North Shore business boom By Miche! Comte Contributing Writer WHIT started in the basement of a house on Capilano Road five years ago has blos- somed into a multi-mil- lion-dollar e-business. Training Net, with a $15 million cash infusion trom American investors on Sept. J, is set to become the top seller of corporate training courses and materials in North America — a market worth more than $90 billion a year. “We want to be number one and we're off to the races as far as that’s concerned,” founder Amar Dhaliwal said. The one-stop training elee- tronic shopping centre has amassed a comprehensive list of tens of thousands of training courses and materials from 20 leading training providers and posted them on their Web site. ton, A cramped busement in Dhaliwal’s house was rurned into an ofhce — which he shared with his partner Nico Porgicter, a salesperson aid his eat. Desks were nothing more than ald) doors positioned across sawhorses and the house phone doubled as a business line. It was not an casy ride. howev- er Four years ago, e-commerce was new and people struggled to understand whar Dhaliwal was trying to do. Funding was a major obstacle. Local banks offered no sup- port, and Vancouver was far from the cpicentre of most ¢- businesses — which are mostly based in Boston and Cafitornia’s Sificon Valley — so private investors willing to delve into this new market were hard to find. Last year, Dhaliwal met three people from the U.S. who were struggling to build a sim- ilar company on the east coast. After several meetings, they decided to team up in February. NEWS photo Cindy Goodman = Within 30 days, the new com- Their list of products and PARTNERS Nico Potgieter (left) and Amar Dhaliwal have developed Training Net from a Capilano-area base- pany had secured $2 million services for sale includes class- ment business inte one of the top sellers of corporate training courses and materials in North America. room courses, instructor-led and self-study on-line events, computer-based courses, training manuals, workbooks, CD-ROMs, videos and audi tapes. “It’s never going to be a big consumer site (like Amazon.com). I can’t imagine people waking up in the moming and saying ‘I’ve got to get me some of that.” We're not trying to build a consumer brand,” Dhaliwal said. “We're looking to be listed on organizations’ internal Web sites. If employees are looking for training, they can look at the Web site and choose any training they wish.” “If you need QuarkXPress training in Vancouver. We'll say ‘there’s this course being held on such and such a day, it’s three days long and costs this much.” We book the course and retain a commission.” Some of the customers they have already signed up include Fidelity investments, CMGI, Allaire Corp. and Genzyme. And many more are being courted. When Dhaliwal emigrated to Canada from England in April 1995, the idea for the business was already brewing in his head. “{'d always known that training was a huge industry, but it was a very fragmented industry,” he said. “Putting in a new coniputer system for example: the hardware was becoming a smatler and smaller part of the cost while training people took up the biggest chunk of the budget.” The following month, Dhaliwal did some research and con- firmed thar training expenditures were significant and that train- ing was considered very important to the success of any organiza- State of vacant Wesiview | — lot irks NV City residents By Michel Comte Contributing Writer A battle is brewing in the civil ser- vice over a small forgotten piece of land next to the Westview Interchange on the Upper Levels Highway. Neither North Vancouver City nor the Ministry of Transportation and Highways wants ownership of the property, which is on the southeast corner of Westview and the high- way on the north side of the 500-block of West 24th Street. The reason is that neither want the respon- sibility for the lot’s upkeep. The vacant property has limited use and has not been maintained for wo years, except fora minor grooming last month when the ministry mowed the grass after neighbors complained repeatedly about the not-so-pleasant view from their living rooms. “I¢’s turning into a dump. Kids going to Carson Graham school are dumping their lunches in the bushes. People walking their dogs are letting them do their business there. Ir’s really disgusting,” Jocal resident Liz Charlton said. The land was bought by the ministry before 1995 and half a dozen houses on it were demolished to make room for the Westview Interchange. Five-year-old architectural drawings show the site was to be turned into a park. But since the interchange was built in 1997, the land has remained vacant and unkempt. “Fr could be the site of a small park, but not a very useful park because it’s not acighbour- ing anyone and its proximity to the highway means it’s very noisy,” said city manager of parks and environment Bilf Granger. He’s scheduled to meet today with ministry officials to decide the property’s fate. For its part, the ministry is keeping quict about its plans. from private investors in the Boston area, a corporate office was opened in Boston and Dhaliwal was able to move into a new office in the old Empire Theatre building on West Ist Street (at Lonsdale). “For me, moving from my basement in North Vancouver to the boardrooms of Wall Strect was most exciting,” Dhaliwal said, referring to a trip to New York to woo Busines Week magazine. (The trip was a success and the magazine now lists Training Net's database on its Web site). Training Net now employs 60 employees, and in August it purchased Massachusetts” First Seminar to make it the sargest classroom-based training seller in the world. Its own Web site — www.triningnet.com — is scheduled to be re-launched with a new face in mid-September. NEWS photo Paul McGrath AREA resident Liz Chariton is upset about an unkempt lot on the southeast cor- ner of Westview Drive and the Upper Levels Highway. NORTH Van RCMP Supt. Jamie Graham... “accept it as part of the job.” Katharine Hamer Contributing Writer THE Supreme Court of Canada’s deci- sion las: week not to allow RCMP unionization hasn’t made many waves at the North Vancouver detachment, according to Supt. Jamie Graham. After several years of deliberation, the court ruled that the exclusion of RCMP members from collective bargaining did not infringe the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Under the RCMP Act, members are not allowed to strike. P accept “Most of us simply accept it as part of the job,” said Graham, who calls the Supreme Court ruling “a good, sound decision.” Graham points out that the freedom to strike is one of the only privileges not accorded to RCMP members. Instead of a union representative, there are a num- ber of Divisional Staff Relations Representatives, or DSRRs, in each province. DSRRs are elected representatives, and are able to go to anyone in the RCMP on any issue, said Graham. They sit on committees with senior management dealing, with issues as wide-ranging as pay, clothing, and officer safety, M-Union ruling Granam caiis the system “as forceful as any union. Most of us who've spent years within the organization feel like we've been well-served.” : The challenge to the current system was launched by Staff Sgt. Gaetan Delisle, an RCMP officer in a Montreal detachment representing a local association. Delisle and 800 other Quebee workers first tried to form a union 25 years ago, but their application was unsuccessful. Graham said that when he breached the subject of the case “passing people in the hallway,” many of his officers didn’t know about it. Most were not follow- ing the case. “Dissension begins at the grass root level,” said Graham, “and we are not a troubled station.”