The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC) provides a wide range of outdoor maintenance and beautification products for home, recreational, and commercial landscapes. Established in 1914, Toro is a $1.3 billion company with more than 4,700 employees around the world. Toro has been involved in golf course maintenance in the United States since 1921, and has played a key role in the development of the game of golf in the U.S. and Europe throughout the 20th century.

Toro provides online access to product and safety training for its golf and grounds customers, offering web-based instruction and quizzes to ensure that equipment operators know about how to properly operate their machinery.

Golf and grounds customers can visit the customer care section of company's website http://www.toro.com to see a list of available videos, and access online slide shows and quizzes. Equipment supervisors can use the video tape or online slide show to introduce new operators to the safety features and operating techniques of a machine. After the supervisor has presented the video and given a demonstration with the equipment, students take an online quiz. Each quiz has 15 questions that are presented randomly from a pool of 20 to 40 questions. The student can take the quiz as many times as necessary until a satisfactory score is achieved . If any questions are answered incorrectly, valuable feedback is provided to assist in the learning process.

If students enter their names when logging-in to the quiz, their name will appear on the quiz and also on the page containing their test score and feedback. Upon completing the quiz with a satisfactory score employers can print out the score/feedback pages for students' training records.

Questions on the quizzes cover everything from proper starting, transport, and mowing procedures to machine maintenance.

According to Toro Distance Learning Manager Brad Beck, the quizzes offer a user-friendly way for users of the company's professional turf maintenance equipment to test their knowledge.

"It's been working very well for us," says Beck. "People like being able to get instant feedback and to discover what they know and don't know about safe equipment operation. It's very important to us that people have the information they need in order to use our products properly. Being able to provide educational materials on the Web has been a real boon both to us and our customers."