Jodi gave me permission to share her reply here, which is a direct quote:

"Hi Tom,
I really appreciate you sending this information my way. I will absolutely pass this along to Willem and discuss what we can do to improve our courses. We really want/need feedback from participants and have been working on an evaluation form after the end of each course. Please continue to pass along any feedback you might hear. This is really helpful to us. ALso we are restructuring our courses starting January 2014.
Thank you again, Tom, for sending this information. We really appreciate this! If there is anything we can do for you in the future, please let us know.
Best,
Jodi"

So, they'll be monitoring this thread for direct feedback. It would be cool if folks offered some. I seriously think they're sitting on a goldmine of gear, technology and experience.

I found this state of training feedback correlates with existing books on the topic. they just give the basics. It's either quite basic, or extremely specific research paper on a single chemical aspect separate from the rest of the roasting process.

I spent all day yesterday with Mike Perry for a "one on one" Roasting Class, and am well pleased.

I'm missing something in this thread. To my mind, training is about learning to control the profile for a given bean so the roaster gets the most (according to his taste) out of it. Cupping is the heart of the process.

Roasters -- as pieces of equipment -- are so idiosyncratic, mastering one roaster doesn't mean mastering another -- not that it doesn't help; while learning to recognize the sights, sounds and aromas of roast development would go faster in a class, it's only a matter of practice; temps don't translate; and the subject of how to slowing or hurrying the different legs of the roast affects the final taste is pretty well covered online and in books.

That leaves cupping and palate development.

If you're already a demon cupper, what were you hoping to learn?

BDL

I spent all day yesterday with Mike Perry for a "one on one" Roasting Class, and am well pleased.

Awesome! No substitute for hands on training especially for professionals; can you elaborate on the class?

But this has been a great thread discussing roasting theory based on a short "free" video from BootCampCoffee.