Ep. 2: IATA CBTA Dangerous Goods Training: What Changed and How to Pass the Exam

Marc Petillon (00:00)
Welcome to this edition of DGM’s Podcast, Compliance Central. Today our guest is Jennifer Perez. Jennifer Perez is currently our corporate training manager in marketing with DGM. And today we’re gonna have Jennifer talk a little bit about training, demystifying some of the training questions, concerns that we may have. So without further ado, Jennifer.

How did you get to working for DGM? How did that come about?

Jennifer Perez (00:34)
So I have been with DGM for fifteen years. And I actually started here because I came as a plus one to an event and immediately fell in love with DGM as a whole. The packing, the regulations, the hazmat, it was very interesting to me.

At that point I was a medical assistant, a surgical assistant, and we were seeing a lot of really nasty stuff and I had some young kids and I thought this is a perfect opportunity for me to kinda switch fields. Especially because I was very passionate about hazmat and how regulations came to be and just the whole purpose of how air and sea is different and countries are different and hazmat was just a whole new world at that point.

Marc Petillon (01:26)
If I remember correctly, I think you started like in an accounting position here and then tell me how you went from accounting to now you’re a trainer.

Jennifer Perez (01:36)
Yes. So I did. I started here in accounting, handling a couple accounts, which were hazmat accounts. And because I was curious about what I was billing, I started asking questions. What’s this mean? What’s that mean? And I very quickly realized how boring accounting was and I quickly wanted out. And I just started kind of venturing into tell me more about this and what’s more about that and I asked to be in an ocean class. That was my first training experience.

And I loved it. And then I felt like I wanted to help people internally. So I started helping my own accounting colleagues. Hey, do you know what that flammable liquid is you’re billing? It’s this. ‘Cause I felt like I needed the whole piece. I wanted to know more than just what I was billing. And so I realized I started training internally in accounting. And so as soon as there was like an opportunity in training, I raised my hand and I started as their admin.

Just getting classes scheduled and talking with customers. And pretty very quickly I kinda started managing a little bit more, handling a little bit more. And when the opportunity arose to become a trainer, I dove in, I learned what I needed to learn, took the trainer course, took my didactic skills and started doing internally DGM training for our employees.

And then got to be in front of customers and that’s when I loved, I love training in person with people.

Marc Petillon (03:08)
Let me ask you a question. You brought up didactic skills. I remember the first time I’ve heard that term, didn’t understand what it was, and that was something that the late founding father of DGM, Uncle Frank, said, Well we need to take didactic skills training and I said, What does that mean? So can you kinda explain to maybe the layman what that means?

Jennifer Perez (03:28)
Absolutely. So there are two key pieces with training. One is the technical knowledge of what the regulations are and the other piece is delivering it in a way someone else can comprehend it. And that is what the didactic skills is. The didactic skills is teaching you how people learn differently. You might be hands-on, you might be more in the book.

You might want to watch more videos. Some people don’t ask a lot of questions. It teaches you how to get them engaged. It also even teaches you how to deal with a complicated student. Yeah. Everybody’s different. You’re managing a group of adults.

Marc Petillon (04:06)
I would be one of those complicated students. I had a guy one time tell me kind of a funny story. This is on the technical side, some computer stuff I was having done with my computer and he tried to explain it to me different ways. Finally he says, leans back, you know what, maybe I should draw you a picture. So you ever had to draw a picture for anyone?

Jennifer Perez (04:25)
I’ve had to draw a picture. I’ve even said go get what’s on your desk that you’re talking about and bring it in here. And they bring it in there. SDS, this is what the airline is saying, this is what this person is saying. We walk through it step by step. As a whole, as a class. Might be one person’s question, but you do it as a whole. Make sure everybody’s understanding it. Yeah. Because again, three people might have got it just from the PowerPoint and the explanation.

But you’ll see more little light bulbs go off once you bring the problem into real time and everybody, let’s look, let’s go into the book. What do you think? And kinda do it as a whole. So that’s a big part of didactic skills and then kind of leading a classroom. You have a group of adults some of them are working and learning, some of them are taking phone calls, some of them are outside too much, some of them are bothering their neighbor. And so since you’re not like a school teacher, the didactic skills gives you that knowledge on how do you keep the classroom running smoothly, professionally, how do you handle a difficult situation, you might have a political discussion come up, right? And you gotta shut that down immediately, basically. Cause everyone’s not gonna agree, right? Or you might have another scenario, a complicated topic comes up on a break and you can see the frustration in the room. Maybe it’s like mental health has nothing to do with what we’re doing, and you might have someone who is very deeply connected to that. So you wanna like keep the breaks and conversations like light and bright and relevant to what we’re doing. And so the didactic skills really helps you learn how do you do that smoothly and professionally without like lecturing adults keeping everybody on track, on pace.

Marc Petillon (06:12)
Think that kind of sets us apart for maybe excuse me why I clear my throat. From other training companies. Because it’s kind of like a one size fits all mentality and I think this didactic skills helps to get through to those students that maybe were afraid to raise their hand because they don’t want anybody thinking they’re the dummy in the class. And that was me pretty much in the class. I was afraid to raise my hand and ask questions but DGM and DGs has always been something that’s been interesting. So I was different when it came to learning this. I raised my hand and I had lots of questions but we didn’t have didactic skills training back then. So yeah, I think that’s a something unique that we bring to the table. So

Jennifer Perez (06:58)
And we rely on it a lot. You’d be surprised when you get twelve or fourteen adults in one room. How very quickly before class even starts you can kinda tell where you might have a little problem. And so again, that was totally separate from the technical and regulatory knowledge. It’s just about managing the classroom. So it’s two totally separate pieces that are key to running a successful training class.

Marc Petillon (07:22)
So let’s talk about IATA and the IATA ATS and then now the CBTA. So let me kind of preface this with DGM was the first. I don’t know if back then it was an ATS, but I believe it was. So in 2006, our founder Frank signed a what we call a historic deal with top brass in IATA.

To become training schools for IATA. We did actually some training for IATA as well. But then it kind of changed over the years to where now it’s CBTA and there’s a lot more requirements, stringent requirements.

Maybe you can expand on that because I know there’some people that are a little still confused about, okay, well you’re an ATS, what’s a CBTA? All these acronyms. So I guess let’s demystify that.

Jennifer Perez (08:22)
So let’start with the ATS. So originally IATA, the ATS stands for accredited training school. And we were an accredited training school. And that’s when they had categories in place. So there were 12 categories. And if you were a shipper, a freight forwarder, a manufacturer, basically what your function specific job roles were, what category of training you were required to have. For everything that we do here, shippers, manufacturers, freight forwarders, they needed the CAT 6, which is everything included.

A couple years ago that changed. IATA changed from the ATS. They pulled that and they implemented CBTA provider, which is IATA Competency-Based Training and Assessment. And then those schools got vetted and approved by IATA and were deemed worthy. They got the stamp of approval, which is the IATA CBTA provider. So they do not use the term ATS anymore. And the categories were replaced with divisions, 7.1 to I believe 7.10. And depending on again your role, what division you need. Primarily we teach 7.1 and 7.3, which is everything that shippers, freight forwarders, manufacturers, packers, craters need to be certified. It doesn’t go into ground handling because we’re not ground handlers. It doesn’t go into some crew or passengers. Those courses are offered.

At the airlines for those people. But CBTA was brought to make the training more function specific. 49 CFR here in the United States was kind of already doing that. They always had training relevant to your function specific job duties and IATA didn’t. It was in these different categories. So the training assessment has kind of brought that closer together. And it is more specific to what you are doing specifically in your job role versus your title or the company you work for. So if you are handling, storing, receiving hazmat of any kind, you need one level of certification. And then when you are packing, marking, labeling, and documenting that cargo and offering it for transport and commerce, you need another level of certification. And it is now kind of the trainer’s responsibility to assess you, see what are your job functions, and then make sure you have the correct training in place.

Marc Petillon (10:49)
Yeah, one thing interesting though is the CBTA it’s IATA. All IATA carriers they require, I guess, their freight forwarders to each have at least one if not two. Two CBTA-certified people on staff. We’re also learning as we’re going along, and if we’re going into what, year two right now with the CBTA? Year three, sorry. That’s why we got the X right here.

And we’re finding out that there’s a lot of carriers now that are working with some really big shippers. We won’t name their names, but and some of them have their own aircraft but now they’re starting to for lack of a better word, farm out some of these airfreight services or using aircraft and those IATA carriers are acquiring them to have the CBTA. So that it’s becoming very interesting commercially. But obviously I love the CBTA for the reason why it’s like, we’re holding somebody to a standard now. Where some countries kinda like whatever the employer feels is sufficient for us and if you deem them competent, so be it. Well we’ve learned with a lot of students coming in that, yeah, the training they had before they just said, Wow, we never even knew any of this so that’s what I like about the CBTA. It’s kinda like this is the course, it’s approved, this is the one they have to give and we don’t deviate from that. Right.

Jennifer Perez (12:16)
One of the things I saw that kinda happened just by chance was CBTA changed kind of right around COVID time. So auditing kind of also dropped off. So there were some people who were kind of grandfathered in that really needed CBTA and didn’t know it until they kinda went in for a renewal process or an auditor showed up or they were renewing their CNS application and they go, Hey, you don’t have the right training in place anymore. This is the old training, you now need the new training. So auditors are really enforcing it. Carriers, any big carrier is gonna require you to have it. And yeah, so it’s really brought it now to the forefront where I like you mentioned, two years. That first year nobody really knew about it ’cause it was 2021, everybody’s like coming out of the 2020 whatever pandemic scenario that was. And there was I don’t even know if a lot of people knew but there was a keep the cargo moving act at that time. So training was able to be paused because they didn’t want people going to the classes and doing all those things, but they still wanted cargo moving in the air. So when everybody kinda started crawling out of that and they started getting those auditors in their building, they started realizing and I started getting the phone calls, what’s CBTA? We needed it like yesterday. How fast can you get over here?

Marc Petillon (13:34)
Yeah. And then during that time, the pandemic, I remember all of a sudden our classrooms are not filling up. And then all of a sudden we were told or allowed by the local authorities that as long as you distance and you didn’t do all these things and we had minimum I think or a maximum students that we could have. I don’t remember but as a business owner and someone that’s responsible for your P&L, we had to rethink on how we’re going to deliver this training. So that’s when we started doing the virtual. Yes. So we are doing the virtual. And I remember telling you, I said, we’re gonna get through this pandemic and we’ll have another product. Yes. And we can expand our classroom virtually and now we do the CBTA virtual because at one point I didn’t allow that.

Jennifer Perez (14:24)
Correct. At first it was only face to face live with the instructor and now they do allow face to face virtual. So you still have to have a face to face connection, hands on where you’re talking with the instructor, but you can do it remotely. And yeah.

COVID kind of brought that along. Before that, you never heard of virtual training or online training if it wasn’t internal in thirty minutes. And now we were doing three and four day virtual classes. We did buy some special equipment. Our classroom we converted. We had it all spaced out for the people that felt comfortable to come in. Abided by all the different regulations that were in place at that time and obviously wanted our customers to feel safe and comfortable in class.

But yeah, online training was born when COVID happened and it’s never gone away. We still have online self-paced training for a lot of different modules other than CBTAs. That one must be face-to-face with the trainer. But it has become one of our most popular classes and we always have a handful of virtual students that really take advantage of that face-to-face connection.

Marc Petillon (15:32)
Okay, so Jennifer, tell me, if I was a new student coming into one of your classes, what would I expect? Walk me through a class.

Jennifer Perez (15:43)
Okay, so if you’re coming in person, you’re coming to our DGM facility. We have classrooms in our actual building and location. We don’t rent a room out somewhere. And we have a training room designed for the class with live examples the whiteboard. But basically day one is a good introduction into dangerous goods. We get to know the IATA book a little bit. You have a full PowerPoint. You’re given a student workbook that you get to keep.

And we have class copies of the DGR, so everybody has the same copy of the regulation that we’re working through together. So day one, you start kind of introduction, dive into the book day two, still working through the book. You start it getting into exercises. As we cover a module, there’s always one or two exercises at the end that you want to make sure the student can kind of do on their own. And then I always ask after the exercise, we go over it as a group.

And because people are still getting to know each other, as you mentioned, sometimes they’re more afraid to raise your hand and ask a question. The way I ease into it is I kind of let them know, like, how did you guys feel about those exercises? Did you find the answers okay? Did you work through the book okay with the information you were looking for? Or did you get stuck somewhere? That’s important to know because you’re moving on into more information. So if someone is still stuck here we need to fix that problem before we keep going. So that’s always really helpful as a trainer. I even kind of walk around and make sure everybody’s got the idea in case someone is afraid to answer. Day three, we get to do a tour of the office. So you get to see because we’re talking about packing, marking and labeling we actually get some live examples of that. We do a tour through the office. And then on day four is your exam.

You’re given about two and a half hours for the exam. Our exam is composed of all different kinds of questions. So you have multiple choice, true and false, some yes or no. Then you have a whole scenario. I mean we give you scenarios which how would you classify this product if these are the different components of the product? How would you know what inner packaging and outer packaging is required for certain UN numbers or different commodities that you’re shipping how you’re kind of working through that to where if you’re given an SDS and a customer is telling you I need you to ship this from the United States through Canada and to Italy, do you know how to make sure your package can get to through and from all those locations? So that the last part of the exam is actually a whole scenario where we give you information. Here’s your shipper, here’s your consignee, you’re gonna ship seven pallets of this type of product and how are you gonna do that? So some of those questions are what inner packaging are you using, what outer packaging are you using, how much net volume is in each amount are you doing an overpack? Then there’s even a declaration. So we give you that shipment scenario, we provide that information to you with the SDS, you fill out the documentation, and you label a 4G box or a drum.

So we know you know exactly what’s required on the inside and the outside of that package. And so all different kinds of questions that are kind of covered in that exam.

Marc Petillon (19:01)
I also think it’s important that everybody knows that you’re not being required to memorize the IATA book. You’re not being required to memorize everything that the trainer has said. So while you’re working through these exercises in the final exam, you actually get to use the book. Yes. And you actually get to use your workbook. Workbook if you need that. Yeah, because I think some people are like, I just

Jennifer Perez (19:27)
You’re absolutely right. I start my training class with holding up that book and showing how fat it is and I let them know, don’t get overwhelmed. You’re not here to memorize this. We’re here to teach you how to work through it, how to find the different information you need, where to go, ’cause it is it’s a book and it’s a lot of looking here and looking there. And I tell people it’s like a roadmap, right? You need your SDS and you need your DGR and you can get where you’re going. But without those two things, you’re kinda stuck. I call it step four.

Which is you get UN number, proper shipping name and you’re kinda stuck at class and division and packing group without any more information. So it’s definitely like a roadmap of what you’re trying to accomplish.

Marc Petillon (20:06)
Yeah, for me always the hardest part was the navigating through the SDS. And before there was some kind of standardization of the SDS when it was called an MSDS. Yes, I’m dating myself. That was always the hardest part. And also what was challenging is you get a it was section fourteen. Is it still section fourteen of the SDS? Where you now have the UN number. So that was always the hardest part, is like let me get the proper shipping name and then navigating from there. However on the commercial side now you gotta figure out okay how can I make a couple of dollars out this without being too expensive for the customer. So there’s a commercial aspect of it as well, but we don’teach that.

Jennifer Perez (20:45)
We don’teach that. We do teach that it’s the manufacturer’s responsibility to provide the SDS ’cause a lot of people out there don’t know who’s responsible for it. And we teach you kind of what key things you can look for in other paragraphs. Like you mentioned Section fourteen. I tell people jump to section fourteen if you want to, see what it’s telling you, and then go through and read all that SDS to make sure you agree. Yeah. ‘Cause section nine might say something that contradicts what section fourteen says.

Or paragraph eleven may contradict what section fourteen says. And it is the responsibility of everybody to properly classify. So your manufacturer might have classified it wrong on the SDS and it is your job to make sure it’s accurate before you offer it out for transport again.

Marc Petillon (21:30)
I can give an example to that. When I first started doing this, which is many years ago, I would really it’s that saying paralysis through over analysis. I would look at all these chemicals that were listed and I saw a flashpoint and I went, Okay, I know what this is and it was like flammable liquids, NOS, you this is I think you can only have what three technical names, is that the maximum in the parentheses? Yes. Okay.

So I went through all this and I thought, man, I man, I got this. No, that’s not the right proper shipping name anymore. So why not? You got all these flammable components in there. It’s paint, UN1263. So don’t overthink it. But then also people are so quick to go to an NOS entry. Another example. Let’s just say there’s toluene, acetone, methyl methylethyl alcohol, something like that.

So I come up with Flammable liquid, n.o.s. Wrong. They’re all alcohols, so it’s Alcohols, n.o.s. I mean just things like that, you will only learn though on the job experience. That experiences because that it’s like that just went over my head. It’s like but it’s flammable, I know, but it’s an alcohol. Right. Like that. That’s kinda like here where you what trips you up. That was what right trips me up.

Jennifer Perez (22:38)
We saw that also a lot during COVID. So when everybody was helping and people started making hand sanitizer everybody was making hand sanitizer. Hand sanitizer is not listed in the book as a proper shipping name, right? So nobody knew how to ship hand sanitizer because remember they’re not trained. We’re keeping the cargo moving. It’s an ethanol-based solution based on the components of hand sanitizer. What it matches up with in the book is an ethanol-based solution because it’s mostly ethanol.

But yes, we kinda go over that in class. I even use that as an example because it’something everybody uses and easy for people to understand. But if what you’re technically looking for isn’t in the book, then you kinda have to go by ingredients. Okay, well what is in it and then you can try to use an NOS or classify it that way.

Marc Petillon (23:40)
Let me ask this question. What’s the most common reason why people fail an exam and have to retake it?

Jennifer Perez (23:48)
Not paying attention in class. ‘Cause we have a very good passing rate. So if you are engaged in class and you are going through the exercises okay, the test is challenging and it is hard, but you will get through it and pass. You’re required to score an eighty percent or better. Like you said, all the answers are in your workbook and your DGR. When I have a student fail unfortunately it’s normally a student who is trying to work and train at the same time and they’re a little too involved in their laptop or they’ve been outside on the phone for quite a bit of time or fallen asleep. So really it’s just not engaged in the class. You can kinda spot those by day two, even day one sometimes I can kinda tell who’s gonna really struggle and have all the questions when that exam comes out.

Marc Petillon (24:35)
We’re gonna have to get a principal in a principal’s office. We just send him to the principal’s office for little Johnny, you’re not paying attention, you’re disrupting the class. Send a note home. Well, so what about online versus in-person training? Where I guess my question would be like what are the pros and cons of that? Obviously the CBTA we cannot do online other than the virtual we talked about, but self-paced online versus

Jennifer Perez (25:04)
Right. So what I started doing is I reach out to the customer and I kind of just let them know what to expect in class and let them know what to expect on online also. Some people need in person training. It’s a little bit easier. When they ask me what my recommendation is, I say if you can get in person training. It’s just totally different. The instructor’s there. You learn more. Other people ask questions you would never think of. Online self-paced training, you’re totally on your own.

You’re watching and you’re listening and you’re watching videos and we do get some people who call and they’re like I’m stuck in section six I can’t get out. And we do help them as much as we can but a lot of times they are repeating that unit over and over again. If you’ve been doing this for a while, you’ve recurrent trained four or five times, I tell them online training is probably no problem. If you’re newer, I would always recommend coming into the classroom.

It’s also I think easier for them to stay engaged than being just at home, online. I mean they can still pass. We have a great, like I said, passing rate. They do stay connected the whole time during the exam, so they’ll have questions and they’ll ask the instructor.

But in person is just it doesn’t compare to having the instructor there. So that’s always my recommendation out of the gate, unless like I said, you’ve been doing this for sixteen years and you’ve taken the class multiple times, and you’re not local, then I understand why you’re doing it remote.

Marc Petillon (26:49)
Yeah, but there’s also still I think there’s a lot of European countries that still require in person like classes. So the online model doesn’t work in every country. Yeah, for me I like the in-person because you get to engage with the teacher, which my high school teacher would hear me talking like this would say, Yeah, you’re not the same person. Because I sat in the back. I was like, I’ll just take a zero.

It’s just to be able to engage with the teacher and getting them to explain it to you to where you really understand it.

Jennifer Perez (27:23)
Right. I mean you can walk around and point at something in the book. You can read their facial expressions and tell, okay, someone’s not getting it, they don’t wanna ask, let me just cover that again. You can just feed off their energy. You can understand when people aren’t understanding. I mean, I’ve looked out into the crowd before and seen a couple of faces and been like, We’re gonna talk about that again. Yeah.

Marc Petillon (27:42)
Also, I mean, we stay behind after class. We do. And just answer whatever questions that people may have. And of course they kinda linger around kinda looking at stuff ’cause they don’t want to be that person like that’s little Johnny over there, doesn’t know what he’s doing. So but that’s not it. I mean everybody’s here to learn. Yeah. Again my high school teacher would be like, Yeah, you didn’t want to learn. All you wanna do is go to the smoking section which I did quit.

Jennifer Perez (28:08)
My high school teacher would go, You did it. You did it because she used to always tell me you’re talking the whole time in class and one day you can be your own teacher. But right now I’m the teacher. And I always think if she could see me now, I’d be like, I’m doing it.

Marc Petillon (28:22)
Alright, so tell me about the twenty four month renewal cycle. So how does that work?

Jennifer Perez (28:28)
Okay, so initially when you are trained you are certified for twenty four months. IATA gives no grace period from the day you test out is the day of your certificate and you are trained or certified for twenty-four months after that. So every two years you’re due to renew.

Marc Petillon (28:47)
What happens to somebody that let theirs lapse?

Jennifer Perez (28:49)
They have to take initial training again. And that’s changed too. One of the things I didn’touch on was from the ATS switch to the CBTA switch, initial training went from three days to four days. And that was a big shocker, especially here in the United States. Four days. How can I get rid of my person for four days? But CBTA brought a four-day training, and now when they renew, it will be three days. And when we had the ATS and the categories in place, it was three days for initial and two days for recurrent.

Marc Petillon (29:18)
Yeah, ’cause so I was brought up in Holland. Worked for DGM in Holland. Learned all about the ADR, which is equivalent to our 49 CFR. My initial training I remember was five days. Wow. But also part of that five days or actually carried over to the following week was kinda like on the job training. We actually physically handled the cargo and you could kind of like see okay the regulations and applying the regulations to an actual job. So yeah, so when we came over here to set up DGM and we started doing training, we’re like, Yeah, five days and people like No way. There’s no way you’re gonna sell that here. Nobody’s gonna do that. Then you had these I’m just gonna say fly by night companies that were doing all modes. Air, road and sea. Half a day. True, false. Multiple choice questions. And you’re certified. That’scary. Now people are putting things on a plane that we fly on.

Jennifer Perez (30:20)
It is very scary. Big nervous traveler.

Marc Petillon (30:23)
So obviously we’ve overcome a lot of that just because as the regulations have evolved and things are becoming a little more stringent and the word being accountability, culpability. So what challenges do you still face when somebody’s looking for training and they come to you with, Well, so and so does one day or two days and it’s all modes.

Jennifer Perez (30:48)
Hmm, the first thing I normally say to that is I have that training too. Yeah. Because we do have general awareness and air awareness and sea awareness and it’s different levels of certification. So I always am like, let’s compare apples to apples. And if you want to get general awareness that they’re calling something else, but if you look at your certification, it’s only certifying you to the 49 CFR, subpart H section 172.704, which is just general awareness, right? So I always tell people, get out your certificate and let’s look at the fine print, especially if they’ve already been certified. Or I’ll tell them, go back to whoever you’re asking, ask them, what kind of certification do I get? Because I was like, we offer all levels of certification. I just want to make sure we’re comparing the same course to what you’re looking at because they’re all called different things. If you’re not an accredited school, you can name them whatever you want.

For instance we have our IATA CBTA, which is one of our most popular classes, but we still have some people that don’t need that level of certification. And because we’re a school, I still offer a two-day dangerous goods by air. Certifies them to ICAO, just the law, not to IATA, has nothing to do with CBTA, but there’still a group of people out there that don’t need that level of training yet.

Marc Petillon (32:03)
All right. So if any of our listeners are unsure on their certification or lack of certification, what is the one thing they should do today?

Jennifer Perez (32:15)
Give us a call. Shoot me an email. You can let me know what you’re doing. I can let you know what certification is required.

Marc Petillon (32:25)
Yeah, I just want to add that this is not always a one-size-fits-all. It is with the IATA CBTA because there’s basically there’s one curriculum, there’s one course that we have to deliver. But we custom tailor. We do we learned that over the years. You have a company that all they do ship is paint and batteries, for example. They don’t need to know any of the other hazard classes. So yeah, we’ll work with you. Jennifer will pick up the phone, call you, understand your business, sometimes incorporate some of your policies and some of your training in that.

We have some clients that we’ve done that for successfully for the last several years. So other than that, I want to thank you for joining us. It’s been a lot of fun. It’s been a it’s been awesome having you part of the DGM team for the last going on feels like 20 years. I know. 16 years. Wow. We won’t say how long I’ve been with the organization. So I guess

Jennifer Perez (33:02)
Thank you for having me. It has been a lot of fun.

Marc Petillon (33:20)
Our producer Erin thought we might do something fun here in the closing segment and that you might

Jennifer Perez (33:26)
Yeah, I’m gonna see how well you were listening.

Marc Petillon (33:28)
And see how well I was listening and maybe test my knowledge a little bit. Yeah.

Jennifer Perez (33:34)
So what does the CBTA stand for?

Marc Petillon (33:36)
My god, you said competency based training assessment.

Jennifer Perez (33:39)
Yes. Excellent. How long is your certification good for?

Marc Petillon (33:44)
Well, the CBTA is two years, but we need to clarify something here ’cause I thought about this. If you look in the 49 CFR, it’s every three years. So let’s demystify that as well.

Jennifer Perez (33:57)
Okay, so 49 CFR is good for three years, which is air, sea, road and rail domestic only. Domestic. So international for IATA CBTA or IMDG for sea is two years. So some people do take sea training and then go, why is my certification not good for three years? And so I tell them, Are you only shipping this by sea domestically? And of course they say no, and then I explain that’s why you need it for every two years. So 49 CFR is

Marc Petillon (34:03)
Domestic.

Jennifer Perez (34:26)
Gives you three years for our domestic code of federal regulation here, but anything international is only two years.

Marc Petillon (34:33)
Okay. And DGM, when DGM was founded in Holland, the Ministry of Transport required retest every eighteen months. So it’s my understanding there’still a lot of DGM offices that are held to that because that is basically what the law required back then.

Jennifer Perez (34:52)
Well that’s what we do over here. Our DG personnel is trained every year to a year and a half, depending on their function specific job duties, because we handle so much hazmat and such a high volume, we wanna make sure they’re very versed in the regulations.

Marc Petillon (35:10)
Plus you have all the notice of proposed rulemaking and the proposed rulemaking and all that we gotta wait two or three years to go, Well, I don’t have to know that for another three years, but it’s not the case. So what other questions you got for me?

Jennifer Perez (35:17)
Yeah, I they have we have a whole okay, let’see here. What kind of score do you have to score on the IATA test? Eighty percent.

Marc Petillon (35:31)
Eighty percent. At DGM, to actually sign a shipper’s declaration and to comply with our huge comprehensive insurance policy, you have to score a minimum of ninety percent. Yes. Our instructors are required to score ninety-five percent. So there that was bonus.

Jennifer Perez (35:50)
Correct. That was a bonus. A little fun fact from Marc. A score of ninety-five percent or better is considered distinguished in the IATA database.

Marc Petillon (36:01)
And you get a little smiley face on your certificate.

Jennifer Perez (36:03)
Yeah. You really know what you’re doing.

Marc Petillon (36:06)
Alright, one more question and we’ll wrap this one up.

Jennifer Perez (36:09)
Okay, name one factor that determines whether dangerous goods can travel on a passenger aircraft or a cargo aircraft. Name one factor.

Marc Petillon (36:15)
Name one factor. Well, if you look in the DGR, it’ll give you maximum net quantity limitations. Those will be less on passenger than they are for cargo. Right. But also pay attention to the inner packaging requirements and those quantity requirements. Some people think five liters, I can put five liters, put it in a five-liter can. Wrong. You can only put it in half liter. So depending on the packing group. So think about that before you do that.

Jennifer Perez (36:24)
Exactly.

It has to be an option. If it’s not an option, the IATA book and regulations say you can’t do it at all, then it’s forbidden you can’t do it at all. So it has to be allowed, and then like you said, watch your inner and outer packages, your limits, your volumes.

Marc Petillon (36:57)
If you’re ever uncertain, you know who to call. Alright, thanks. See you next episode.