Paige-

>It takes 50 fields just for the skills and other required health data for each Employee

"SKills" is the sort of thing that *should* be pulled into another table (a child table). For example, several employees can have the same skills, and there really isn't any reason why one employee can't have an unlimited number of skills. That way, the client can keep adding skills to their heart's content. And even change skill descriptions. Plus, then certication requirements can be attached to SKILLS rather than the person.

There's a trade off that is the client's perogative...If they want to change data structures a lot and as the system is evolved, then one side-effect is that they will need other architectural changes. Age-old battle/story.

Or the system can be architected that let's them do that...but that's not trivial, either.

Anyway, thanks for the interesting discussion and letting me drone on :-) Best of luck to you!