Transportation departments around the country are challenged to find, hire and retain engineers with sufficient, applicable, and up-to-date training. Enhanced workforce development efforts are needed to address many recruitment and training issues, such as rapidly changing technology, intense competition for skilled workers, high expectations, limited resources, an increasing demand on the transportation system, and an overall smaller labor pool. Specifically, the area of rural ITS communication systems is compromised because of the lack of professional capacity. There is a pressing need for a comprehensive training course on communication systems that will build the professional capacity of rural ITS engineers and technicians. For example, the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) has identified numerous training topics for ITS communications engineers, such as Telco and Plant wired communications, next generation wireless systems, and IP networking fundamentals. However, there are limited existing course offerings in transportation communications related to these topics. Moreover, engineers and technicians must not only be aware of what technologies are available, but especially how to best select, implement, and maintain those technologies. This project will have an educational, professional capacity building focus; the primary goal will be to have leading subject matter experts provide a hands-on learning experience for rural ITS engineers and technicians. WTI will develop, present and evaluate a pilot course, then develop recommendations for next steps (such as possible development of a full curriculum.)