Pest Management Professional, December 2009

The First Word KEEPING IT SIMPLE The Best Column Ever Certified Certified by PG By Pete Grasso Managing Editor I ve been fortunate enough to have done quite a bit of traveling during this past year all for the sake of this great magazine Traveling around the country is truly the greatest part of this job Each trip affords me the opportunity to connect with pest management professionals PMPs whether Im meeting them for the first time or reconnecting with the friends Ive made in this industry Interacting with the people in this friendly family oriented industry makes dealing with the headaches that can come with traveling worth while During my travels as I sit on airplanes trying to fight sleep or avoid doing work or is that the other way around I inevitably turn to the SkyMall catalog for distraction I dont know why but I find the pages and pages of bizarre products found in the SkyMall catalog to be endlessly entertaining even if Ive flipped through the exact same catalog the week before on a different trip Where else can you find antlers for your As PMPs you need to be the source from which consumers draw information relating to pests truck a marshmallow shooter and the Ultimate Three Wheeled Cruiser all in one place And why in the world would you decide to purchase any of these things while sitting on an airplane I dont think Ive ever in all my air travels thought to myself Gee riding on this airplane really makes me wish I could find a Yeti sculpture for my garden I suppose in some way its kind of sad that Im so familiar with the SkyMall catalog But whats really scary is the number of pest management related products Ive found while flipping through its pages From the SkyMall catalog consumers can purchase items such as Keep Your Distance Bug Vacuum Natural Attractant Mosquito Trap Decorative and Reusable Yellow Jacket and Wasp Trap Deluxe Electronic Pest Insect Repeller The New Snake Oil Those are only a small sampling of SkyMall catalog products which claim to protect the public from the nuisance of pests One line of products which piqued my interest quite a bit were the CleanRest encasements Protect Your Sleep the product ad says Doctor Recommended for asthma and allergy sufferers it proclaims Certified bed bug blocker it declares Huh Hold on just a minute there CleanRest Thats the phrase that caught my eye certified bed bug blocker Is this product a legitimate tool in the fight against bed bugs or is it simply jumping on the bandwagon of bed bug paranoia The asterisk points in the direction of a footnote that read Certified by ICR inc A quick Google search reveals ICR to be a private contract research lab committed to objectively and confidentially conducting pesticide product testing When I asked Greg Baumann vice president of technical services for the National Pest Management Association NPMA about ICR he said Its a contract research group They are credible Remember though on an airplane I had no Google nor was Greg my traveling companion This is information a normal consumer would have to take the initiative to look up on their own after theyve landed Youre the expert when it comes to all things pest management As PMPs you need to be the source from which consumers draw information relating to pests When a consumer reads or hears about a fantastic claim some new product makes about its ability to control pests you want them to think I wonder what my PMP thinks of this product Open the lines of communication with your customers so they turn to you as a reliable source PMP You can reach Grasso at pgrasso@ questex com Be sure to check out his blog Keeping it Simple at www mypmp net petesblog www mypmp net DECEMBER 2009 PEST MANAGEMENT PROFESSIONAL 11