Unless, maybe, it was a really nice key chain.

A few years ago a colleague wanted to move from print publishing to Web publishing. She set up an interview on a Monday. She told me not to call her over the weekend, as she was going to teach herself HTML. She got the job. A career move now has her working at America Online. Another woman was a dissertation shy of a Ph.D. in forest products. She decided she was not much interested in trees. Instead, she got a job working for an Oracle programming company and less than five years later is part of a team working for a major airline.

The human mind has an amazing ability to learn; all it needs is a push. Training is the key. Good managers make continued professional development part of employee reviews. Educators are recognizing the need for nondegree programs and course offerings for professionals. HR offices are trying to figure out how to provide training quickly and affordably to the greatest number of people.

Virginia Business has put together the following report on work-force training to help in that endeavor. It comes in two parts: The print version of the magazine presents two articles about the state of training. Think the worker shortage is bad now? It could get worse. Our first article notes the potential shortage of academics in the technical arena. The same exploding economy that has been sucking up workers is sucking away doctoral candidates. While the demand for technical education is growing — undergraduates wanting tech-focused degrees and professionals wanting to keep their skills up to date — the faculty isn’t growing with it. The second feature looks at improvements in professional training brought about by the Internet — think of it as e-learning.

The Internet is where you need to go for the second part of this report. Virginia Business researchers have compiled searchable resource lists for anyone with a hand in keeping the company’s work force up to snuff. Visit http://workforce.virginiabusiness.com for directories of the commonwealth’s public colleges, private colleges, community colleges, private career schools and professional training companies.

Finding and developing good people these days isn’t easy, and it will only get harder. But with these resources, it’s time to quit whining and start training.