Going through my mail at home yesterday, I was amazed by the talent the University of Washington's Extension program has lined up to teach technical courses this autumn. Only in Seattle can you take an evening programming class from managers at the world's largest software, aerospace and e-commerce companies.

Here's a sample:

SQL Server Administration: Taught by Euan Garden, group program manager, Microsoft SQL Server Strategy and Architecture Team.

Introduction to Visual Basic: Shamez Rajan, Microsoft program manager, and Lou Tylee, Boeing associate technical fellow.

Basic Perl Programming: Joel Grow, Amazon.com software development engineer.

Perl, the Web and Databases: Doug Treder, Amazon.com senior software development engineer.

Network Architectures, Protocols and Standards: James Farricker, Boeing technical fellow and chief engineer.

Establishing Project Management Leadership in the Organization: Phyllis Sweeney, Microsoft director of product life cycle, with consultant Clive Schuelein.

That's just a few of the engineers and managers contributing to the program. Other companies represented include Siemens, InfoSpace, Group Health and Washington Mutual.