Plateau Honors Customers with Excellence Awards

TSA, NiSource and Gulf Coast Regional Blood Center Set New Standards for Enterprise Learning

Arlington, Va. • November 15, 2004 - Plateau Systems, a leading provider of enterprise software that manages learning and knowledge readiness, today announced the winners of its 2004 Customer Excellence Awards. The winners are the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) for the Plateau Impact Award, NiSource for Best Business Solution, and Gulf Coast Regional Blood Center for Best Branding.

"To quote Inc. 500, ‘Plateau Systems' client list reads like a Who's Who of Corporate America,'" said Paul Sparta, Chairman and CEO of Plateau. "We are thankful for such a wonderful group of customers, all of whom are doing great things with our solutions. TSA, NiSource and Gulf Coast Regional Blood Center, however, have singularly distinguished themselves in some key areas. We are proud to recognize their dedication and innovation."

Winners were chosen for the three award categories by Plateau executives based on the degree of innovation and depth of commitment illustrated within their use of Plateau's learning management solution. Honorees were announced at Plateau's annual Insights User Conference in San Diego, California.

Summaries of the winning implementations follow:

Transportation Security Administration – Plateau Impact Award
Following the tragedies of September 11, 2001, the TSA was created as a new government agency, charged with protecting the nation's transportation system. Starting with no employees and having to grow to 60,000 in the span of 10 months, TSA knew that one of its biggest challenges would be to deliver and track both initial and ongoing training for the 50,000+ screeners it initially hired. To meet this challenge, the TSA selected Plateau. Within nine months of the selection, the TSA's Online Learning Center went live.

With over 60% of its entire staff having experienced training via Plateau, and roughly 3,500 ongoing student logins per day, the TSA's learning team has driven a significant positive impact for its agency and for society as a whole.

NiSource – Best Business Solution
NiSource subsidiary – Northern Indiana Public Service Company – used Plateau in a creative way to solve a pressing business need. Faced with a possible labor strike, the company had to quickly bring its auxiliary workforce in compliance with regulatory training and testing requirements. In addition, it also utilized Plateau to train its management team on the labor laws that would govern their actions in this situation.

With the help of Plateau's LMS, Northern Indiana Public Service Company was able to provide and track all training needed to maintain its safety and qualification standards and avoid violations of regulations put in place by the National Labor Relations Board.

Gulf Coast Regional Blood Center – Best Branding
Gulf Coast Regional Blood Center has done an excellent job of internally promoting its Plateau system. Most organizations that have deployed an enterprise software solution recognize the importance of internal promotion and end-user buy-in. Gulf Coast Regional Blood Center's efforts, however, have gone beyond the standard for creativity and ingenuity.

The Gulf Coast Regional Blood Center created an internal launch campaign for Plateau based on a new name for the LMS: the GOLD Mine (using "GOLD" as an acronym for Gulf Coast Online Learning and Development). A gold nugget, affixed to an invitation, was sent to all employees inviting them to kickoff meetings. The kickoff meetings had a mining theme and were used to demonstrate the LMS and answer employee questions.

Additionally, the Plateau system screens were branded with a GOLD Mine logo and a new gold-themed color palate. Finally, a Web-based student training program was created based on the miner theme where students had to collect six gold nuggets to receive certification on Plateau.

About Plateau: Plateau is a leading provider of enterprise software that manages learning and organizational readiness. Plateau 4 Learning Management System (LMS) is built on Web-based J2EE architecture, and is the engine behind the largest LMS initiatives in the corporate, non-profit and government markets. Plateau's software is being used to manage learning and improve human performance at organizations including the American Red Cross, General Electric, the Internal Revenue Service and the U.S. Air Force. Plateau is listed as a leader in LMS evaluations from Gartner Inc. and META Group.

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