The Social Security Administration (SSA), Office of Central Operations, provides help desk and network call center support to over 6,000 users. The agency was consolidating several help desk call centers into a single agency-wide network call center. Orange Technologies, Inc. provided customized network and customer support skills training to 42 technical support staff. The staff consisted of middle level technical support personnel (i.e., GS-9, 11 and 12's). The training was conducted in 4 groups of 10-12 each. The purpose of the training was to raise the trouble ticket resolution rate at the tier 1 and 2 help desk level from a low 20% to a goal of 80%. The training was customized to reflect the unique environment within SSA, (IBM token ring and NT 4.0 with Primary Domain Controllers (PDCs) and Backup Domain Controller (BDCs) and migration of agency to Ethernet and Windows 2000 with Active Directory. Training included customer service, soft skills as well as hard technical skills. Training was customized from CompTIA® A+, Network+, Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP), customer service skills, using metrics to improve performance. Skills taught included roving profiles and systematic troubleshooting Ethernet and Windows 2000 Professional. Advanced Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) topics were covered for the GS-12 group, including Virtual private network (VPN), Variable length sub-net mask (VLSM) and Classless Inter Domain Routing (CIDR) and routing protocols, including Routing Information Protocol (RIP) Version 2, Interior Gateway Routing Protocol (IGRP), and Open Shortest Path First (OSPF). ST Net used our proven end-to-end integrated approach solution to respond to this training requirement permitting us to meet the diverse SSA end user community needs while satisfying SSA contract performance, within schedule, and the lowest costs. The tailored SSA Help Desk training approach, shown in the figure below, focused on tailoring the standard technical training to the SSA environment through our proven "custom teach" concept. This tailored training approach integrated the SSA help desk tools, the SSA users' physical environment and current SSA help-desk work processes. By using practical exercises honed to the SSA user work environment, training presentation was greatly enhanced, easily applied and more interesting to the SSA training population. Our life-cycle approach, shown in the figure below begins and ends with the SSA user, with our established training development and execution providing the tools to complete the course. Initially, we identified the training goals and requirements to address the "customer total training population." In the execution of this logical, life-cycle approach, ST Net also provided the necessary technical, management, and quality assurance processes coupled with the necessary support infrastructure to efficiently address the SSA help desk training tasks and perform the necessary management oversight, and control as well as the unique reporting required by the SSA contract. ST Net training was well received by SSA training participants and ST Net received excellent ratings from the training attendees who participated in the SSA Help Desk instruction.