Safety-Kleen Selects Centra to Enable Delivery of Live, Interactive Online Training to Employees...

Business/Technology Editors

LEXINGTON, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 21, 2001

Nation's Largest Waste Management Company Embraces Leading eLearning

Infrastructure to Increase Business Effectiveness and Lower Costs

Centra (NASDAQ:CTRA), the world's leading provider

of software infrastructure and ASP services for eLearning and business collaboration, today announced that Safety-Kleen, the nation's largest industrial and hazardous waste management company, has selected Centra's real-time collaboration software for the delivery of live, online training to its dispersed North American workforce. Using a combination of Centra's virtual classroom and Web conferencing software products, Centra Symposium(TM) and Centra Conference(TM), Safety-Kleen is able to accelerate the delivery of job-critical information and skills to employees in 250 facilities while significantly reducing training-related travel and communications costs.

Serving more than 400,000 customers across the United States and Canada, many of Safety-Kleen's numerous branch and facility locations are in remote areas, making on-site training programs and company presentations cost-prohibitive. Using the Intranet to facilitate the delivery of live, interactive communications, Centra's solutions enable Safety-Kleen to interact more frequently and effectively with branch and facility locations, creating a stronger corporate community and closer links to the customer. And, by reducing the time and cost burdens of travel typically associated with classroom training, Safety-Kleen has been able to provide training to more employees and tackle issues that previously could not be addressed. Safety-Kleen offers a curriculum that averages 10 Web-based sessions per month.

"Safety-Kleen's ability to communicate business-critical information to thousands of employees quickly is crucial to our success," said Dawn Potter, Director, Training and Development for Safety-Kleen. "With Centra, we saw an important opportunity to take many of our training initiatives online. With an estimated $60,000 saved on travel and overhead costs for one software application training course alone, Safety-Kleen has already realized an enormous return on its investment since implementing Centra last fall."

Software Infrastructure for Live eLearning and Collaboration

Already used in over 500 companies worldwide, Centra's Web-based enterprise products and ASP services share a common collaboration framework, and are optimized to address the full range of real-time business interactions necessary to accelerate internal and market-facing business processes. Every product features Centra's hallmark voice-over-IP capabilities, robust collaboration tools, and intuitive user interface to enable live conversation and interaction over low-bandwidth network connections. Centra's products include Centra Symposium for virtual classrooms, Centra Conference(TM) for Web conferencing and events, and Centra eMeeting(TM) for meetings and ad hoc team collaboration.

"Through capabilities for effective, online collaboration and rapid global deployment, Centra is ideally suited for large, widely dispersed organizations like Safety-Kleen," said Tony Mark, President and Chief Operating Office of Centra. "It is increasingly critical in today's economy to standardize communications, leverage IT investments for greatest return on investment, and accelerate time to market. Safety-Kleen is a prime example of how forward-thinking customers have embraced eLearning infrastructure from Centra to address these overwhelming needs."

About Safety-Kleen

Based in Columbia, South Carolina, Safety-Kleen Corporation is the leading provider of industrial and hazardous waste management services, serving more than 400,000 customers in the United States and Canada. For more information, visit www.safety-kleen.com.

About Centra

With over 1.3 million users, Centra is the world's leading provider of software infrastructure and ASP services for eLearning and business collaboration. Today hundreds of global organizations have standardized on Centra, including Accenture, Domino's Pizza, ExxonMobil, Siemens, Nationwide Insurance, and Procter & Gamble. Centra supports a vital ecosystem of strategic eLearning partnerships, which include alliances with Microsoft, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Cisco, Oracle, Saba, Docent, and Global Knowledge. Headquartered in Boston's technology corridor, the Company has sales offices throughout North America, Europe and Asia. For more information, visit www.centra.com.