Davis, CA
July 27-31, 2004
COMMENTS
 | Thanks John, Suzanne, Jennifer for all the hard work & coordination, it was lots of fun. |
| Very nice/modern seminar room, great food. |
| The packet provided for the course will be an excellent reference manual to our state. |
| I really liked the course, but too many breakout sessions. |
| Disappointed that Region 8 couldn’t send anyone from Regional office. (4 States represented from Region 8.) Good Course. |
| UC Davis has excellent Facilities & Staff. I always recommend courses here. |
| Breakouts too short to fully flesh out issued. ˝ hour each extra would suffice. |
| The EPA staff and Davis staff were great – great interaction and attentiveness to participant needs. |
| Let bus drivers get more sleep. Work on art placement at meals. |
| There is a need for more time for discussion as a whole group. The break-out sessions were very beneficial. However the groups should alternate so that we can learn from more participants. |
| Breakout session assignments should be made available before the training so we can tap into other resources/people at our workplace for additional input. |
| Great course- thank you! |
| Excellent support from Suzanne and Jennifer – thanks, for all the hard work – well done. |
| Food was wonderful & you anticipated all needs – just turn the thermostat up a little. |
| Enjoyed course very much, but wish I could attend more of these & PIRT. More people from states should attend & I was very lucky to go. |
| Very well delivered from all presentations. |
| Personnel from UC Davis were very professional and ran very informative training courses. I want to thank everyone for the opportunity for this training. |
| College has a very good facility. |
| Overall course provided some excellent information that I will be to apply when I return back to work. |
| PREP course was great. I think should have more hands-on training. They should not make course a week long course. |
| Snacks and lunches provided were excellent. Field trip and that guide were very interesting! |
| Excellent training. |
| Staff is fantastic – professional, knowledgeable & flexible. |
| I’d like to see the same people return year after year for consistency in the program, or follow-up to the attendees with the topics presented. I particularly liked being part of addressing problems with the regulations that EPA is struggling with. Also I’d like to take these problems back to my state & brainstorm about them and see if anyone can come up with a solution. I’ll be thinking about these problems as I’m conducting inspections and will keep my eyes open for a solution. The solutions may be out there but because we didn’t know the question or didn’t ask the right person the right question we may have missed a potential solution. |
| Knowing ahead of time about the need to justify where our money is being spent and/or a change in how we "convert beans" or a need to track a much more vague concept such as – have we improved worker safety, helps me to be more critical about how I as an inspector can improve my techniques to make it easier to show our program efficacy. |
| The number of questions to "respond" to during the breakout sessions was a bit too ambitious, specially the last one! A lot of really valuable information came out of this course. I hope this info gets to the right people to facilitate making improvements to the pesticide programs. |
WHAT WERE THE STRENGTHS OF THIS COURSE? WHAT DID YOU VALUE MOST?
| Learning basic information on current events with WPS has been a great intro into the regulatory world. |
| The information exchange between States/Regions. (The fact that communication is lacking.) |
| Networking w/States & other Regions. |
| I feel that this was one of the best PREP trips I have attended. Speakers were excellent – especially – health issues and WPS issues. |
| The breakout sessions/reporting: Shared information from the states/regions what works ideas exchanged. |
| Fumigation was very good & needed. Talks in general were well prepared & give good foundations to build on. |
| Real world issues and problems that can result in better inspector performance. |
| Great speakers (especially those from industry) good job maintaining schedule – days flowed smoothly. Great overview of WS issues! |
| Break out sessions were educational and a good way to network. I enjoyed the pesticide study presentations & Homeland Security. |
| Strengths – diversity of speakers although the speakers were excellent, the break out sessions was where I learned more. |
| The information provided covered topics not discussed before. |
| Participants from across the country, hard working – some excellent speakers. |
| Interacting with other states/tribes during and after-hours, breakout sessions and industry speakers. |
| Leading edge of change and improvement in communication. |
| Several sections were beneficial to me as I now will be able to implement requirements of WPS in my daily inspections. |
| The course needs to have more hands-on objectives. |
| Hands-on/field trips. Presenters that kept audience interests. |
| Break-out sessions were great. Gave perspective w/other states on WPS. |
| Well presented and organized. |
| Speakers were excellent. |
| Most speakers were excellent; breakout sessions were helpful and interesting. Logistics were excellent. |
| I really enjoyed the presentation regarding biomonitoring and I would like to know if there are other studies like this being done. Also are there grant monies available to conduct these studies – could a Masters or Doctoral candidate do one of these studies for a thesis? |
| The Industrial Hygienist was very entertaining but I most appreciated that his presentations were relevant and current. He really focused his presentation on pesticide, was knowledgeable and personable. |
| Lastly, I’d like to say that the caliber of speakers was wonderful. You did a terrific job of putting together a relevant, education al fun training. I’ll think about this information often and plan on presenting the topics to my fellow Inspectors & management. The Davis area is safe (I really appreciate that) has wonderful and varied foods, fun shopping and activities. The campus is beautiful and the relaxed environment makes the long days in session much more tolerable. The free 2 hour happy hour at the motel was great if you don’t drink. It brought us together to discuss issues & concerns in a relaxed environment. The hotel accommodations were great. I felt safe and it was close to many activities. It would be nice to have an option to come in a day early or stay 2 days late to maybe take a tour to wine country or a foray into San Francisco with a local. |
| Farm Family Exposure Study – great presentation. Would be interesting to find out if a more in-depth review was conducted within the states in studies were conducted in to see if my knowledge obtained from my study inputs in outreach which ultimately would impact farmer & farm family health not to mention potential environmental impacts. (Thinking about the level of glove use – is there a plan to focus educational C&T re-cert programs for agriculture on glove use and the impacts of a lack of glove use? I think if farmers were told/shown the impact this PPE has on them specifically it would be effective. |
| Pesticide Illness-wonderful speaker. |
| PPE Risk Management – great presentations. |
| Field trip – fantastic. Mr. Hosada was a wonderful speaker, very knowledgeable. |
| Overall session comments: (1) if sessions are held on Saturday, start a bit later in the AM, so people can go to the Farmer’s Market. (There are a lot more farmers on Saturday morning than on Wednesday evening! – more fun!); (2) I really learned a lot from this course and appreciate the variety and expertise of the speakers; and (3) the staff (as usual) was wonderful, the food excellent. |
HOW COULD THIS COURSE BE IMPROVED?
| Shorten & more hands-on. |
| Just incorporate objectives & allow participant activity where they feel comfortable. |
| Maybe crammed too much in. |
| Should offer courses geared to various levels of experience (separate for managers/inspectors, possibly?) |
| The breakout sessions – showed a constant there throughout workshops. |
| How about some "how to." |
| More time on breakouts. Go past 4:00 pm, these are topics that shouldn’t be rushed so much. |
| Some content is interesting/good to know but will not necessarily contribute to better work performance – seems to be more for EPA. |
| The speakers were of very high caliber, although there is a need for time to discuss solutions. Not only present the problems we are facing, but tangible solutions. |
| Microphones should be made available to everyone – many questions& comments were lost because we couldn’t hear & speaker did not repeat. |
| More presentations discussing the scientific security reasons/basis for WPS evidence. |
| I thought this course was excellent. Continue to incorporate breakout sessions. (The food was wonderful.) |
| The only comment that I have is that we need more time after breakout sessions to discuss the issues covered. |
| Room arrangement wasn’t conducive to hearing people or associating faces with names – chairs were AWFUL. |
| Issues should have been given (sent) to participants before coming. More time for break-outs and discussions afterwards. |
| Need more time for the reporting portions of the breakout sessions. |
| Shorten the course. |
| Stay within inspectors’ interests. More on state/tribal/EPA working relationships, trainings/ Q&A session. |
| I think that PREP should get more presentations from Tribal EPA concerning their programs. |
| Too many breakout groups. |
| Breakout sessions should provide for changes in the groups. Too much time was spent discussing "topics" with the same people. |
| Give participants more time to work during break out sessions and provide more specific guidance about objective/goals of sessions. |
| The measures discussion should have started with the basics of measurement (unless this was covered in the 2003 PREP – or the PREP help in May/June 2004?) |
| I wish we had more time to brainstorm things. Maybe a list of questions that triggers critical thinking about the breakout sessions could be sent with the acceptance notification (acceptance letter to the training so we can have more time to consider the options.) Also I thought the instructions on the breakout sessions were a little vague – what was the ultimate goal? Were you asking us to help you come up with ideas you could take back to your agency to help you find solutions? I don’t think that was ever clearly stated. |
| I really would like to see a website where enforcement issues could be posted and comments made by inspectors, mgmt, regional people etc; and where upcoming trainings etc could be posted. I’d like to see it mainly for field inspectors to discuss ideas, needs etc. I would be willing to work on this if not nationally at least regionally. |
| Please provide PEPSI products too! |
| State of Worker Safety Program – it would be helpful if someone would articulate what the vision is for the program – which would include the merging (or apparent merger) of the WPS with the traditional "applicator safety program" if that is the plan (and it seems this is the case) then say it - establish a goal or goals, a timeline, etc. so the regions and the SLAs and other parties can have the infrastructure in place to support and achieve the goal. Not enough discussion on C&T program and how the above effort will impact my program. |
| Activity Based REIs – bad idea, but it’s too late now. |
| It would really be nice if the big changes that have occurred (1) tractor cabs and (2) fumigation label changes had a Headquarters written fact sheet for the Regions to send to the SLAs. True communication channel with our SLAs is open and easy to do - it would be great to have a comprehensive/professional document to share with the SLAs. |
| The changes to the fumigation label were relatively easy to cut and paste to create an effective document. It would be helpful to have the same sort of thing for the tractor cabs. It was not clear to me if these 2 changes have been relayed to the PAT stuff – all of this impacts the C&T program! |
HOW WILL THIS COURSE HELP YOU IN YOUR JOB/CAREER?
| Again, meeting others, sharing information between participants. |
| Expand knowledge/thinking. |
| Learned lots of things I will use in the field. Also formed networks with other inspectors/managers. Got better overall picture of other state’s programs. |
| I am really excited to have this opportunity to work with other states and take home ideas. |
| The tribal participation was a first for me and this area was interesting and educational. |
| The interaction with group provided "real time" information. |
| Quite a few of the lectures were of items or concerns that we face. |
| Benefit vs. inspector benefit. |
| All that was presented has helped me identify issues I should be addressing in my area. It was a very good course. |
| Updated on regulatory changes – need to incorporate into outreach efforts. |
| Knowing some of the common deficiencies will help target areas that our state needs to focus improving on. |
| I have better understanding of some issues, which were not clean to me before – such as fumigation. |
| Field trip very over informative, speakers were excellent, breakout groups had some thoughtful ideas. |
| I am going to set up the Monsanto speaker for a big grower meeting this winter and possibly the Quality Pro Program for a statewide inspector meeting. |
| Update forming inspections. |
| I will be able to implement the changes and requirements for WPS. |
| In conducting WPS inspections. |
| This course would help our program with WPS. WPS will be an issue for our program next year. Just starting with WPS. |
| Yes. |
| Perhaps the greatest benefit is enhanced "connectivity" and "networking." |
| It will help with future state program planning. |
| I hope to take the comments and make adjustments to improve my impact on the program. At least try to improve my input on the program. |
WHAT OTHER PROGRAMS WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE US OFFER?
| Ground water. |
| Would like to have more frequent basic inspector training or available in video/DC format. It would be nice to have a larger number of presentations from which we can pick & choose based upon relevance of topic to our area of interest. |
| Would like to have had info on Farm Families, Child Labor Courses and how to identify methods to address them. |
| Label organization & requirements. More time on fumigation, WPS, training in general, get together more often, international binders. |
| Offer a straight cut session again! |
| Industrial hygiene speaker was good, but this is BASIC STUFF we get all the time. Need more equipment/hands on stuff like fumigation. |
| Inspector training more frequent outreach and communication between all regions. |
| More tribal selected courses or issues. |
| I think PREP should try to get together to do a tribal PREP course. Invite other tribal programs. |
| How to design and set up a cholinesterase monitoring program. |