Gov. Training Advisor

Bev Pederson

Government Training
Program Advisor

With the growing number of Virtual Assistants, I firmly believe, as do the other board members of VACertified.com, that certification will lend credibility to this profession and clients will be assured they are contracting with an accredited professional.

Bev Pederson is a passionate advocate of the Virtual Assistant Profession.  While working on her Master in Education seven years ago, she began researching the emerging profession of Virtual Assistants and was truly inspired.  So inspired by the VA Community, Bev had a vision. Her vision was to create a college level VA Training Program in Canada.  However this was not an easy task. Bev spent months surveying VA’s, filling out government paperwork, and finding just the right VA who shared her vision to help develop courses.

Her hard work and determination paid off in 2003 with the launch of the Virtual Assistant Certificate Program at Red Deer College.  A monumental event in the history of Virtual Assisting as the VA Certificate Program broke new ground and became the first ever government accredited VA Training Program in Canada.   The Virtual Assistant Certificate Program has become the leader of College level training for VA’s in Canada and will be celebrating their 5th graduating class in May 2009.

Further Highlights About Beverly Pederson:

The program includes: Trends in telecommuting, the growth of the Internet, and corporate downsizing have contributed to the growth of the virtual assistant profession. This online program will provide opportunities for students to gain entrepreneurial skills, attitudes, technology skills and related knowledge to adapt to providing office services virtually from their home offices. Students will learn how to create and market a viable home-based business using their technological skills to contract office support to for-profit businesses and not-for-profit agencies. Optional specialization will allow students to select from other major support areas: Automated Accounting, Web Design, and Electronic Spreadsheets.

There are three intakes: beginning September, January and April of each year. Each course is 14 weeks in length.