University of California, Davis
April 19-23, 2005
COMMENTS
 | Healthy food choices were great. Things to do after class, good opportunities to converse w/EPA staff. |
| Great course – really wonderful people, welcoming and supportive – I learned a lot. |
| Great course. Was very beneficial. |
| Very good course. A lot of information on almost all of the registration topics/issues that we have. |
| I had a wonderful experience. Everyone was so nice and took great care of us – wonderful food. |
| Hallmark Inn is getting worse, but still ok. Field trip was excellent. UC staff always helpful and professional. Suzanne and Jennifer, the best in all aspects. |
| Difficult to address new and old students w/ varying experience and background. |
| Great job, field trip was excellent, hospitality was very good. |
| This class can go one more year. |
| Great course once again. |
| Food was 1st class – room very comfortable, layout helped with group participation. |
| Reference book accommodations and hospitality was excellent. |
| I feel so happy to be here, I learned a lot of things that I’m sure will be of great help to do a better job. |
| Exceptional - this course is so relevant to what I encounter on a daily basis and I don’t always get input from those in my office they can’t provide info. |
| Bigger bathrooms at conference lodge. Teleconference did not go well. Breakout sessions awesome! |
| Very good course and the people were great. |
| Try to eliminate the "fluff" in presentations, maybe include a 5:30-7:00 pm session, and shorten the overall course to 3-4 days. |
| Though unfamiliar with registration course provide basic information and understanding of process and importance of collaboration. |
| Overall UCDE did a great job again. This course however did seem to be somewhat rushed to get together. |
| Excellent program! Invaluable interaction between federal government and states. Much is gained through educational process vs. adversarial approach. |
| Great work! Liked all of the program will use it. |
| Since we sit so much, comfortable chairs. |
WHAT WERE THE STRENGTHS OF THIS COURSE? WHAT DID YOU VALUE MOST?
| Good one-to-one dialogue between States, Region and EPA. |
| Networking. |
| Interaction between HQs, Regions and States on mutually impacting issues. |
| The strength of the course is having all of the state registration people together interacting for this amount of time. I value listening to all of the problems and solutions everyone has. |
| State-to-state interaction – giving registration folks a forum to discuss problems. |
| Interaction between states expertise and experience of EPA presenters. The food. |
| Quarters were good. Setting was great. Fruit was great. Facilitated exploring arboretum. Field trip was excellent. Basic overview was very good. It was very good to interact with staff. |
| Excellent mix of HQ’s perspective and challenges from the states. Anti-microbial and bio-pesticide sections were very good. |
| BPPD and rust. |
| Quality of speakers, the amount of interaction was outstanding – they were all honest/upfront. |
| Reference book and websites speaker present for presentation and questions. |
| I think that the instructors play a big roll in the successful of this course. They must be invited to other courses. |
| Quality presenters which makes for meaningful, relevant and applicable training. |
| Diverse group. |
| Finding out just what U.S. EPA doesn’t look at. |
| Thorough. |
| Student-presenter discussions, number of EPA representatives; willingness of everyone to help. |
| Interaction with other states and U.S. EPA on the range of topics selected. |
| UC Davis campus is a fabulous location for this program and Suzanne and Jennifer do such a great job. They truly take care of everything – First Class! John ward is an excellent facilitator. There is no way that this many states could or would participate without the EPA funding. I really appreciate the commitment that EPA senior staff makes to the success of this program. Food was good. Love the treats. |
| Besides the educational info, food, classroom, and preparation (handouts, AV, etc.) was great. |
| Networking nationally and regionally. I learned important things in casual discussion that I need. |
| The coordinators were terrific w/ prior informational needs and timely answers to questions and moving the speakers along on time during the training. |
HOW COULD THIS COURSE BE IMPROVED?
| Student receives a new copy of 40 CFR and EPA instructors integrate references to 40 CFR to help break down the "wall of terror" in interpreting regs. |
| Shorter; more directed toward label review or enforcement. |
| Increase the time for state presentations more details on risk assessment and risk cup. |
| Thought everything went very smooth. |
| The teleconference was hard to hear. |
| Too much food – reduce by ¼. Speakers should repeat questions before answering and ensure all can hear when answering written material from field trip. |
| I felt that states wanted to voice concerns over 25(b) problems, Section 18s response to questions with minimal time or opportunity to collect and summarize issues and concerns to regions and HQ. It seemed the group was a little frustrated from efforts for clarification in the past. |
| None continue w/ the changes from other evaluations. |
| I know that EPA’s language is acronyms, but its sometimes tough to follow a talk when constantly referring to the cheat sheet otherwise a great course will use this course in my new job and to help my replacement in WPS – specific course in lieu of worker protection (relate to the WPS regs) – compliance courses. The conference call was very useful, but may have been ever better if OECA reps attended. Suggested that NSPIRS attend a PREP course – if UC Davis could provide a computer lab, a combination NSPIRS/product registration PREP class would be useful. |
| More detail in reference book. |
| Offering more websites to search information, books references. |
| I think a general overview of the review manual would be good. (Desperately needed a segment on internet sales and best way to stop sale these.) |
| Flow chart as to how EPA works based on pesticide registrations. |
| Maybe make it Mon- Fri. |
| I think the OECA call could have been better. |
| Include more real-life examples, more hands on more breakout sessions. |
| Compare registration processes to Canada’s or some European by having a presenter here. |
| Longer time frames for homework and scheduling. Less road time for field trip or devote a full day to the trip. |
| Chairs get hard after a few days better cushioned chairs would be great. |
| Consider running a couple parallel tracks to economize on time. Split more advanced vs. beginner topics. |
| I thought everything was very well done in the course. The instructor and topics were good and had a lot of important information. I think the most common area for improvement would be in the adding of specific examples in many of the talks. There are topics that some of the attendees don’t have much experience dealing with. If we had examples of Section 18s & 24(c)s during the talks we could become more comfortable with the process. Some of the overview classes were vague. More concentration on the position and what they do vs. the people in the positions. |
| Learned about more state websites to improve AK contacts from training, state and federal. Who to go to when have concerns regarding registration issues. |
HOW WILL THIS COURSE HELP YOU IN YOUR JOB/CAREER?
| Invaluable course for developing intent to learn more and resources to pursue answers. |
| Basic chemical identification for non-chemists. |
| In all aspects by giving me an insight on what is offered by PREP. |
| I have so many questions that have been answered and been given the tools to be able to handle issues that will come up. |
| Making EPA HQ contacts and knowing who to call on specific problem areas. |
| Expand knowledge of subjects, not opposite #s in other states, gained EPA contacts. |
| Need to understand registration, OECA/OPP/states roles, who to contact. |
| Registration is new and it was very helpful to establish contacts and gain background for my work. |
| Good review. |
| Reference material. |
| New knowledge and very important, I hope to do a better job. Thanks for all. |
| I will be able to make better and more appropriate decisions. New resources will be utilized. |
| I learned many things regarding pesticide registration and enforcement. |
| Where to go for assistance if needed. |
| New ideas, different perspectives, thought-provoking. |
| I will use what I learned to evaluate what we are doing in our state. |
| Perhaps later in the week and have people pre designate when they are accepted. |
WHAT OTHER PROGRAMS WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE US OFFER?
| Offer program areas e.g. worker protection safety, ESA. |
| Seems as if this covers most of duties I perform on a regular basis. |
| Looking forward to PIRT. |
| I would like to see a "work group" for stream lining process (Section 18s) development of electronic labels and label review. |
| Case development. |
| Procedure within HED, BEAD, EFED, OECA make reference material available to states who can’t attend for some reason. |
| I would like to see a PREP class that covers producer establishment issues. Producer establishment are critical area that not much training provided on. When I find time to read it’s a manual. |
| Label language. |
| OECA and OPP together on the same programs – we need consistent info. |
| Committee to clarify 25(b) labeling. |
| We covered so much between set topics and state presentation I think we covered quite a bit. I think the OECA call could have been better. |