Continuing Education

I introduced “Continuing Education” to being Online.

ARPANET adopted TCP/IP on January 1, 1983, and from there researchers began to assemble the “network of networks” that became the modern Internet. The online world then took on a more recognizable form in 1990, when computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web.

In 1993 the Internet’s takeover of the global communication landscape had not occurred yet.: it only communicated 1% of the information flowing through two-way telecommunications networks. The Internet was widely used for mailing lists, emails, e-commerce and early popular online shopping (Amazon and eBay for example), online forums and bulletin boards, and personal websites and blogs, and use was growing rapidly, but by more modern standards the systems used were static and lacked widespread social engagement.

By 1996 there were no continuing education courses on the internet that I knew of. In fact when I contacted the State of Florida about putting courses up, they had no answer! I was working for Chitester Management in Tampa, Florida. Chitester Management had three branches – Engineering, Continuing Education, and another. I was the head of the Engineering Division, but had little work, so I shifted over to the Education Division to help out. I was writing Continuing Education courses and then flying to Dallas, Chicago and Miami to give the courses. I would fly in in the morning, go to the hotel and set up, the people file in, I stand up and give the lecture, they file out, I break down and take a taxi back to the airport and fly home. Lots of work for a short hour long lecture.

In 2001 I had a better idea for Continuing Education. I figured people would like to take the course online. So, I took one of my courses, created an Internet ready format for it, and loaded it up on the server we had for the company web site. I created a portal so anyone could pay for the course using their VISA card. Then I created a rough page where you could take my courses:



This was an active web page, but only the first course actually existed. I took the idea to David Chitester, my boss. I pitched the idea of people sitting at home and getting their Continuing Education Units (CEU’s). David really did not think that the idea had much merit, “People want to come to my seminars, be able to talk to the teacher, and learn that way. Few people know about the Internet and have access to it anyway.” I was discouraged.

A month later David called me in, he had thought it over and decided that maybe it would be a good idea after all. “If I put up $20,000, you put up $20,000, and I will find a third to put up $20,000 and we will try it.” He had an attorney that he had used and was going to use him to put the paperwork together. 

A few weeks later I stopped by and asked David how it was going. “I found two people who each will put up $250,000 and they want the entire project.” I was struck dumb. My idea could not be protected by Copywrite, or any other process, it was gone.

Well, the cat was out of the bag, and I did not have the half million to take it to fruition myself. So, I asked for a chance to be an author, and thus I wrote 30 courses and they put them up. I earn 4% of what they charge for my courses, and I earn enough for a cup of coffee every month from the resulting site: https://www.redvector.com/

The two guys who put up the original $500,000 most likely are multi millionaires now, as Red Vector is a very popular site.