Hosted by the Idaho Department
of Agriculture
Boise, Idaho
September 21-25, 2009
WAS THE AGENDA FOR THIS COURSE ADEQUATE AND DID IT MEET YOUR EXPECTATIONS?
 | Yes, the agenda was more than adequate and provided a great overview of the ICS structure and its applicability. |
| The course focus was ICS 301—so yes, it met my expectations. |
| The agenda was adequate and the sessions more than met my expectations. |
| Yes. |
| Very beneficial for Response Corps. personal. |
| Excellent course on ICS—great presentations. |
| Yes. |
| ICS—Needed more time on forms, especially the 215. More time, less extreme situation—for table top and an example in book for 215 & request form. |
| ICS 300 trainers were very good and field trip fit into the program well. Ms. Dea and Ms. Suzanne were great hosts! |
| Yes, very well done. I got a lot out of this course and will be taking back some ideas to implement. |
| This agenda was diverse enough to keep it interesting, but kept the main topic throughout. The course exceeded my expectations and I would recommend having this course available in future years. |
| I believe this course would be better presented outside the scope of PREP. The course material that must be presented doesn’t lean itself well to the PREP model. 10 hour classroom days are too much. |
| Met and made very understandable all aspects of ICS. |
| The basic content of the course and speakers were very good for the basic objectives of the training. |
| Very useful information. Developed very good base for using ICS within our individual experiences at work and within our own ICS framework. Helped establish the importance of building better relationships with the organizations that incorporate our own ICS teams. |
| Yes it met my expectations. |
| Excellent PREP. Fantastic food. Great Hotel and location. |
| I believe some areas could have been lengthened but not to add more days to the course. I believe it was just enough of each to get some guidance in setting up in our state or enhance what has been established already. |
| Yes—I would have like to have had the details of the agenda earlier than it was available. The ICS training days were, in my opinion, too long for absorbing the material. |
| Very good PREP course. Great agenda! The course exceeded my expectations. |
| Yes, the ICS training was very excellent. The communication information was a great reminder. The presentations on Friday were not as helpful but good to know that they exist. The field trip was very interesting. |
| Yes it did. The ICS 300 course was very intense but very informative and the hands-on experience was great—it complements with the field trip. Excellent PREP. |
| Yes—I leave with a better understanding of ICS. Understand/appreciate its applicability to many non-disaster types of incidents. |
| Yes, it as more than adequate and far exceeded my expectations. |
| Yes, all objectives were adequately met. |
| Yes—I liked the addition of food safety and the biological based exercise. |
| Yes. |
| Without any bias, I think the agenda was fine. This is the second “Hi-Vis” course I have attended and this one was much better. The field trip was one of the best. |
WHAT COULD THE PREP PLANNERS HAVE DONE TO MAKE THIS COURSE MORE USEFUL TO YOU?
| I feel that the course was quite useful. The planners did a great job. |
| I don’t have enough experience to make any recommendations. |
| Good job, PREP planners. |
| Greater applicability for pesticides. I would like to have someone from EPA or USDA to talk about tolerance issues with a misuse. |
| Give guidance to speakers so that all slides in the hand-outs are read-able (some were too small or lacked contrast). Ask speakers to relate to pesticides/use more pesticide examples if possible. |
| Pencil sharpener. |
| Make it shorter, the last day was useless—I had taken in all the information my butt could handle. Would have been nice to see some of the Ag Production Operations in the State of Idaho. |
| Can’t think of anything. |
| It would be helpful if the sessions could incorporate AG/Pesticides examples or keep that emphasis in mind during their talks. |
| I appreciate the efforts of the steering committee to put together a good agenda. Idaho was a good choice on location for this course and the field trip was excellent to see how this process is put into place. |
| This course and the speakers made all points of ICS 300 and other topics very understandable and useful. Speakers were outstanding. |
| The arrangements were excellent with the usual thorough attention to detail. Perhaps the 1st day at the program should go no longer then 5 pm to give folks a chance to adjust to the time zone changes. |
| Not exactly content related, but I would like to see agriculture in the area where the training is held. I realize ICS was the focus here and the field trip incorporated ICS very well. More opportunity to experience the area would have been nice. |
| It was good as presented. Very good topics. |
| Field trip to ag areas outside of Boise. |
| None—the course schedule was too long every day. Could be reduced by cutting some topics last day. |
| Everything was perfect considering the importance of keeping on schedule to get all the presentations all in. |
| Agenda—detailed prior to nominations. Consider the class—focus on more material with direct application to pesticide regulators. The session on mental health was very good and should be expanded in future offerings |
| Well planed, important course. |
| Can’t think of anything, overall very good and worth my time. |
| I think the classes were important to compliment the main objective that was to get clarification in ICS-300. |
| It’s a long week, but this is one I’m not sure you could shorten much. I think more info from DHS on available resources (tech and money) to support preparedness would be helpful. ICS 300 guys did a great job! A few states putting their heads together could probably come up with a very good table top that was pesticide specific. |
| Provide more relation to pesticide incidents. |
| ICS going till 10pm was too long. |
| Good work. |
| 4 days instead of 5. |
| I was a planner. I felt the communication was a little weak. |
IF THIS COURSE WAS TO BE HELD AGAIN IN THE FUTURE, CAN YOU SUGGEST FACULTY WHO COULD SUBSTANTIALLY IMPROVE THE AGENDA?
| EPA + USDA personal to talk about their response to a tolerance problem with a high-level management. |
| Not too sure that day 5 was that beneficial—at least for me. |
| No—liked ICS instructors. Someone who has done ICS with major events or with pesticides. |
| The ICS Trainers from ISU/T were great! May want to offer ICS-400! Make all PREP classes four days! |
| I would not conduct ICS training through PREP, keep to pesticide programs and pesticide issues. ICS can be conducted outside of PREP. |
| It was great to have experts with extensive ICS experience. Perhaps, over time, they can build examples and activities that are more relevant to pesticides. However, I would rather have firm experts with extensive ICS experience, than pesticide experts with no ICS experience. |
| Great job Suzanne and staff! |
| Agroterrorism could be a good topic to do as a PREP in 3-4 days. |
| I believe the same credentials should be used for each of the presenters if the same ones cannot be used. Actual experience is very important in a presenter. |
| No—however the communication and FEMA sessions were not strong sessions for me. |
| Not aware of any at this time. |
| Maybe to dedicate more time to ICS-300 course. |
| Not immediately. I think there may be some states with pesticide responses that could make additional good examples of where ICS would have or could have been valuable. |
| Consider eliminating one Thurs-Fri topic to get to an 8-hour day. |
| ICS-400. |
ANY ADDITIONAL COMMENTS?
| This was a great course and the facilitators were excellent. You may wish to expand on the ESF’s. |
| No training day should ever go 10 hours. For any Reason. PREPs should no longer be 5 days. 3 days is ample in most cases. |
| I appreciated the opportunity to attend this course. |
| I would appreciate being able to get into a new group to meet others. Too much alcohol consumption. |
| The Boise facility - rooms and meals - were wonderful. Plenty of restaurants close by for evening activities. |
| Exceptionally well-qualified and knowledgeable speakers, overall. |
| Five days is too long to sit and take in this much information—a four day course would be much better! I stop taking in the presentations after a certain point. |
| No, thank you. |
| Thank you Dea, Suzanne, UC Davis, and the Idaho Department of Ag for hosting. The Grove Hotel was excellent. Food great! I will continue the ICS process and believe it is the only way to respond to many incidents/events. Specially relates to ICS 300, the training, I understand, is a model to respond to any type of event but it should be tailored in the examples and table top exercise to pesticides so that we could relate the training with our duties. The table top was way too complex and unrelatable to be the benefit it could have been. Alabama is interested in hosting a PREP in 2012. |
| One of the very best and most useful training trainings I have attended; course planning and agenda and coordination were excellent. |
| Mental health presentation can help identify day to day stress which would apply more to my situation since I am not directly involved with large incidents. Very helpful in coping with these stressful periods at work. |
| Morning break refreshments. |
| PREP could be reduced to three days and two days for traveling. Exp. Monday and Friday travel days and Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday as class dates. 5 class dates is too long with these types of classes. Please create ICS 400. I’d like to participate if that is offered. |
| I was dreading 5 days, but my attention was maintained with all of the diversity and relevance of material presented. |
| I would like to see this course offered with ICS certification optional—there is a lot we could have covered of high value if so much time was not consumed by the required ICS 300 hours. |
| The only complaint is we were in a beautiful city and were in class late enough that many things had closed by the time we were finished. |
| Thank you for the nice meals and facilities as well. Please thank the local housing staff; it takes a great deal of time and effort to host these courses. |
| Thank you for the opportunity to attend this PREP class and as usual, EPA/UC Davis staff were very professional and very helpful—great job, thank you very much. |
| My only suggestion would be to maybe eliminate some of the topics presented on Friday, so travel home could be done on Friday. I would like to see a PREP course on Agroterrorism by Dave Goldenberg. |
| Great job! Good information. |
| Thanks for coming to Idaho! |
| Dea and Suzanne = great job! |