San Luis Obispo, Calif., April 10, 2025. FOCUS Learning Corporation, provider of the VISION Training and Performance Support System, today announced it has acquired Quality Training Systems (QTS), a privately held consulting, training, and software company serving electric utilities across North America.
The combination brings FOCUS Learning a stronger leadership bench and a professional services team that works at the point where training meets regulatory consequence: software implementation, technical training, and consulting on the Systematic Approach to Training (SAT). For customers of both companies, it means a wider range of expertise available from one partner.
This integration of our businesses is a win for the FOCUS Learning team, the QTS team, and our combined customer base.
Jay Steele, Chief Executive Officer, FOCUS Learning
About QTS
QTS is sought out for its expertise in applying the Systematic Approach to Training, and in teaching others to apply it, particularly in electric utility transmission and distribution system operations. The team has completed job task analyses and built turnkey SAT and regulatory compliant training programs for technical positions at utilities throughout North America, including Dominion and MISO. Its work consistently earns high marks from compliance auditors.
That same expertise shows in the design of its flagship product suite, the Quality Training Database (QTD), which has recently completed a next generation redevelopment effort to better position it for evolving customer needs.
Expanded professional services
The acquisition widens the professional services FOCUS Learning can offer. The combined team includes technical instructional designers, industrial and organizational psychologists, performance consultants, and project managers, with backgrounds spanning electric power system operations in transmission and distribution, nuclear power generation in both civilian and military settings, renewable energy, technology, higher education, and manufacturing.
QTS customers have long relied on these team members to:
- design and develop training programs
- complete job task analyses
- build e-learning
- put knowledge transfer and retention processes in place
- integrate human performance improvement into training programs
- run strategic projects such as training department turnarounds and standing up new control rooms
What changes for customers
The combined team is focused on a problem its customers share: an aging workforce, and rising pressure to move what the most experienced operators know to the people who will replace them. FOCUS Learning will introduce the expanded capabilities to customers over the coming months.
Editor's note. This announcement was added to the FOCUS News archive after the fact. The acquisition closed on April 10, 2025, and the date above reflects the close.
Two things have changed since. The QTD next generation redevelopment described above has shipped as Qlarity, FOCUS Learning's platform for training and qualification management in electric utilities