ABSTRACT
Developing an ongoing training program that includes participation and communication with employees will keep the program interesting and help both new and old employees stay abreast of industry developments. Putting together a successful program takes commitment from management and employees to organize and follow through. Putting the Pesticide Certification Program together took a lot of planning and organizing. But once in place, it was easy to implement annually. The instructors are volunteers from the industry or teaching institutions. The curriculum focuses on personal and environmental safety with integrated pest management (IPM) as the approach. Communication is the key for an IPM approach to become reality. The same effort put into obtaining customers is necessary to retain them. As research develops better techniques for landscape management, the opportunity to implement an IPM approach becomes more of a reality.
