GP Strategies Corp. (NYSE: GPX; formerly General Physics Corporation) is a global performance improvement provider of sales and technical training, E-learning solutions, management consulting and engineering services headquartered in Columbia, Maryland.

GP Strategies Corporation was founded in 1959 under the name National Patent Development Corporation (NPDC) as a venture capital firm focusing on technology companies. In 1960 it went public.

In 1986, NPDC purchased majority ownership of General Physics Corporation (“GP” or “General Physics”), which was established in 1966. Originally, GP provided technical services to the Navy Submarine Nuclear Power Program in the areas of operations, safety, and training. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, GP expanded its service offering and industry focus through internal investment and acquisitions that expanded its reach into environmental, energy, IT, and other government markets.

In 1998, NPDC changed its name to GP Strategies Corporation. In 2003, GP Strategies decided to focus on its training, engineering, and consulting business operated by GP and embarked on a plan to spin-off certain non-core assets to stockholders. In November 2004, GP Strategies spun off its non-core assets into a separate corporation which was named National Patent Development Corporation. In September 2005, GP Strategies completed the spin-off of all of its non-core assets with the spin-off of its ownership in GSE Systems.

From 2005 to 2011, GP Strategies was a holding company, consisting solely of its wholly owned operating subsidiary, General Physics. Effective January 1, 2012, GP Strategies merged with and into General Physics, eliminating the holding company structure. General Physics was the surviving legal corporation and was renamed GP Strategies Corporation effective with the merger. Following the merger, there were no material changes to the company’s financial position, business operations, state of incorporation, directors, executive officers, or management.

Today, GP Strategies serves a variety of industries, including aerospace, automotive, pharmaceutical, financial, healthcare, electronics, food & beverage, energy, metals, process industries, petrochemical, and telecommunications, as well as state, local, and federal governments. Its service offerings have also grown to meet the needs of its customers. GP Strategies delivers training, performance improvement services, training business process outsourcing, lean consulting and operational excellence consulting, engineering, construction management, homeland security services, and many other services that improve an organization’s operating performance and competitiveness.

GP Strategies currently operates with four operating segments: Learning Solutions, Professional and Technical Solutions, GP Sandy and Performance Readiness Solutions.

The Learning Solutions segment delivers training, curriculum design and development, e-Learning services, system hosting, training business process outsourcing and consulting services globally. This segment also offers organizational performance solutions including leadership training and employee engagement tools and services. This segment serves large companies in the electronics and semiconductors, healthcare, software, financial services and other industries as well as government agencies.

This segment provides training, consulting, engineering and technical services, including lean consulting, emergency preparedness, safety and regulatory compliance, chemical demilitarization and environmental services primarily to large companies in the manufacturing, steel, pharmaceutical and petrochemical industries, federal and state government agencies, and large government contractors.

The GP Sandy segment provides custom product sales training and serves manufacturing customers in the US automotive industry for over 30 years. GP Sandy provides custom product sales training designed to better educate customer sales forces with respect to new vehicle features and designs. This segment also provides technical training services to automotive manufacturers as well as customers in other industries.

This segment provides performance consulting and technology consulting services, including platform adoption, end-user training, change management, knowledge management, customer product training outsourcing and sales enablement solutions in industries such as manufacturing, aerospace, healthcare, life sciences, consumer products, financial, telecommunications, services and higher education as well as the public sector.