Date: 3/29/99

Time: 10:45

Type: Symposium

Number: 10

Attracting the private consultant to the Branch

*E.S. Raun, Pest Management Company, Lincoln, NE 68506
Contact e-mail: PM31648@navix.net

To consider attracting Practitioner membership and participation in ESA and/or Branch activities, current active membership must first consider remedying the following problems. 1) Current membership and meeting participants are generally entomological specialists. 2) Meeting presentations, and most ESA publications, are written by and for entomologists in a narrow topic of the broad field. 3) There has been no real attempt to provide a section for Practitioners (generalists), either at meetings or in publications. 4) The Branch meeting would be ideal for a Practitioner's program. But generally, those who did not graduate in entomology do not even consider joining the ESA because there is no Branch membership, separate from ESA membership. 5) Practitioner's needs are being supplied by other organizations. The National Alliance of Independent Crop Consultants continues to grow, as are state consultant associations. In a nutshell, the North Central Branch ESA, to attract Practitioners in the crop consulting fields, a. Must make a conscious effort to provide information ready for incorporation into practice. b. Treat Crop Consultants as the professionals they are. c. Recognize it is competing with growing "Practitioner" associations. d. Academic entomologists should become certified. Being a university professor who disdains becoming certified, sends a message of segregation to the practitioner profession.

This abstract may not be cited or reproduced without permission from the author(s).