Cohort, on-site, and self-paced programs in operational discipline, leadership, and human performance — built by the team that wrote the standard industrial operator's handbook and deployed to 600+ plants across refining, utilities, renewables, and heavy manufacturing.
Every program pairs live instruction, workbook-based exercises, and on-site field validation. Delivered as cohort, self-paced, or customized on-site engagements.
The standard reference curriculum for industrial operations, human performance, and accident prevention — turned into a structured, site-wide training program.
Effective and ineffective leadership techniques for every level of an industrial org — from relief foreman to plant director. Scenario-based, built from two decades of field observation.
A systematic, field-validated approach to reducing maintenance-induced failures. Build the discipline that protects your safety envelope without slowing the crew down.
A practical field curriculum for owners, investors, and EPC leaders preventing execution failures in solar, BESS, and renewable infrastructure. Mechanical completion, commissioning, and warranty discipline.
A practical field curriculum for owners, investors, and EPC leaders preventing execution failures in solar, BESS, and renewable infrastructure. Mechanical completion, commissioning, and warranty discipline.
We don't sell seats. We stand up programs that shift how your operators, technicians, and leaders work — and we measure it.
A 45-minute call with a senior instructor. We discuss with plant management over recent issues or incidents and the outcomes you're accountable for. No pitch deck, no sales script.
We walk your plant (or review your ops data remotely) and identify the three highest-leverage interventions. You get a written assessment — yours to keep, regardless.
We customize a program from our four flagship tracks — cohort scheduling, on-site modules, and handbooks shipped to your site.
30-, 60-, and 90-day check-ins. We report on incident rates, completion scores, and leadership readiness — and return on-site at 6 months to validate.
Every engagement ends with a written outcomes review. These are the median results reported by client sites one year after rollout — not cherry-picked hero stories.
Every tier is built on the same flagship curriculum. What changes is the level of customization, coaching, and site presence.
Async video modules, digital handbook, and a quarterly open cohort to ask questions.
Live instructor-led cohort over 6–8 weeks. Workbook-based exercises, remote field coaching, TechStar certification.
Instructor teams deployed to your sites. Customized curriculum, field coaching, and 6-month outcomes validation.
Purchase orders, Net-30 invoicing, and tax-exempt documentation supported on every tier. Volume discounts apply automatically at 10+ participants.
TechStar's lead instructor, H.C. Howlett II, is the author of The Industrial Operator's Handbook — the standard reference text used at 600+ plants — plus Trustworthy Leaders, Maintenance and the Safety Envelope, and the construction field guide Built To Shine.
Hop Howlett has been developing and presenting special-skills training programs in a variety of technical arenas for nearly thirty years. As an operator, shift supervisor, and training manager, he acquired nearly a decade of hands-on experience in nuclear plant operations, maintenance, training, and emergency preparedness.
Every TechStar instructor comes from the operations floor. Combined, the team has managed over 5,000 MW of utility-scale plants, led EPC commissioning at major capital projects, and trained operators across refining, utilities, renewables, and heavy manufacturing.
We ran 140 operators through the Cohort tier. Within 90 days, our shift-turnover incident rate dropped by over a third. The workbook exercises did what a decade of slide decks never did.
The Leadership program paid for itself in the first supervisor development cycle. Every new front-line leader goes through Trustworthy Leaders before they get a crew. It is the most aligned onboarding investment we've made in a decade.
Built To Shine is required training on every renewable project I lead. After the on-site program, our mechanical completion walkdowns went from a box-check to a genuine quality gate. Our EPCs had to level up to keep up.
Printed handbooks are included with every cohort seat. You can also buy them standalone for teams running their own internal programs.
Yes — every tier supports POs, W-9s, tax-exempt certificates, and Net-30 invoicing. Most of our enterprise clients enroll teams through procurement. We handle consolidated invoicing across multiple sites as well.
Cohort-tier customization is light — we align terminology and reference plant-typical scenarios. On-Site Enterprise tier is fully customized: we ingest your procedures, SOPs, and incident history and build site-specific modules on top of the flagship curriculum.
TechStar Certification is an internal credential used by client organizations as a standard readiness marker. It's not a government license, but it's recognized on résumés across refining, utilities, EPC, and renewables — and several client sites now require it for new supervisor promotion.
Public cohorts launch quarterly. Private cohorts for a single client typically kick off 4–6 weeks after a signed engagement — enough time to ship handbooks, confirm schedules, and run a short site assessment.
Every engagement includes a 30-day outcomes check-in. If your site manager and our lead instructor both agree a cohort isn't working, we re-run missed modules or refund the remaining unearned fees. We've had to invoke that clause twice in 25 years — both times we re-ran the modules.
Yes — printed handbooks and digital editions are available standalone or in bulk (5+, 10+, 25+, 50+ copies with automatic volume discounts). Many clients start with the books and add training once they've used the material internally.
You'll talk to a senior instructor — not a sales rep. Bring your org chart, your sites, and the operational metric you're trying to move. We'll tell you honestly whether our programs are the right fit.
We respond within one business day. No automated drip sequences, no sales sequences.