The world is different across the Bay Bridge from San Francisco beyond the Oakland Hills, through the Caldecott Tunnel, in the interior San Francisco Bay region. To answer this difference in cultural and economic mind-sets the CANS Economic Development Consortium was established in fall 1998. The CANS (Contra Costa, Alameda, Napa, and Solano counties) Consortium consists of four major college districts bound together with common needs in the areas of vocational and occupational training for the purpose of economic development and welfare reform training. This group is currently seeking federal and State assistance to develop a regional ED>Net approach and will link all ED>Net centers of the consortium in one area for one-stop assistance. Phase I has already been instituted with grants from the Chancellor's Office and DOE matching monies. This involves the establishment of classroom-based distance learning equipment (Picture Tel 2000) placed at all member colleges' environmental technology laboratories. Phase II of the project is the development of targeted curriculum for the CANS region. The targeted industry cluster for this application will be information technologies. Development of new technology in GIS and information systems (IS) technology is critical to the CANS region. GIS is among the most promising and universally applicable of the new technologies in the field of decision analysis. Recent work by EDD and ABAG (Association of Bay Area Governments) has shown that by 2005 more than 85 percent of all jobs in our region and State-wide will be service and informational based. Dramatic residential and business growth regionally dictates an urgent need to be filled. The areas of curriculum development to be emphasized include the following: · Introduction to ArcView GIS · GIS/GPS Technician · GIS Database Technology · GIS/Fire Safety Technology · GIS/Administration of Justice Technician · GIS/Business Applications Technology