By Richard Levine

Richard Levine

I’m in Orlando, Florida for PestWorld, the annual meeting of the National Pest Management Association, along with Chris Stelzig, director of the Entomological Society of America’s Certification Program. We’ve been joined by a lot of Board Certified Entomologists, such as Richard Berman, Rebecca Baldwin, Chelle Hartzer, Forrest St. Aubin, Shripat Kamble, Tim Husen, Frank Meek, Tom Myers, Allie Taisey, Neil Spomer, Dean May, Fred Strickland, and Gene White, among others.

This morning Richard and Rebecca, along with Kim Kelley-Tunis, ACE, taught a prep course for about two dozen people who are studying to be Associate Certified Entomologists, also known as ACEs.

Cool poster from Taiwan.

Equipment used to inject trees for protection against insects such as the emerald ash borer.

A poster at the Tick Box Technology Corporation booth. These guys make a trap for white-footed mice and other rodents that play a role in the spread of Lyme disease. Rodents go in, get pesticide applied to them, and the ticks die, reducing the spread of the disease.

In Ohio they had MOTHMAN (see post from yesterday), in Orlando they’ve got Ratman.

The Blue Men.

Ras Patel, from the magazine International Pest Control.

Tim Husen, Chris Stelzig, Shripat Kamble, Karen Nix-Leonard, Forrest St. Aubin, and Jerry Heath.

Besides being the first day of the PestWorld meeting, today is also special for another reason. The ACE program, which until now has been limited to pest management professionals in the U.S., launched an international version today, which will give PMPs across the globe access to the same professional credentialing that U.S.-based PMPs have enjoyed since 2004. ESA will be partnering with the National Pest Management Association on marketing the new international program, which will be known as ACE-I.

The ACE-I program will be slightly different from the one for PMPs in the U.S., where applicants must have a current pesticide applicator’s license. Since many nations do not require licensing, the international standard will be different. ACE-I applicants will still need a minimum of five years of experience, but they will not be required to be licensed. Instead, a second and shorter exam focused solely on pesticide safety will be administered to all international applicants. To become an ACE-I, applicants will need to achieve a passing score on both the Pesticide Safety and the core ACE exams.

Click here for more information and to apply for the ACE-I program.

Richard Levine is Communications Program Manager at the Entomological Society of America and editor of the Entomology Today Blog. He is not really an entomologist, he just plays one on YouTube.