Four of our RD4AG team traveled to New Orleans for the 2014 National Alliance of Independent Crop Consultants annual meeting last week. Paulo Dafoe (Research Biologist II), Laurinda Baird (Facility Coordinator), along with our fearless President Lee West and VP Steve West braved a cold week in a cold hotel, but were warmed by the usual great camaraderie and excellent topics on the program.Since most all of the independent field researchers in the country attend this meeting, many of the clients take the opportunity to get their research partners together for some training and updates on what they have in mind for the upcoming year. This makes for a long week, since those start in 8 am Monday morning, and the meeting does not really start until Thursday!
Other opportunities we take are for formal GLP training, and this year Lee and Laurinda went through that while Paulo and Steve sat in on a full day of Ag Research Manager (ARM) software training from Steve Gylling. We all learned alot. Even though Lee and Steve have been doing this for over 30 years now, there is still more to know... updates in interpretations of regulations, refinements in software, new needs of clients, and reminders on things important to all.The Sessions this year were also quite good! Some excellent topics including spray technology, BQMS training from USDA, updates from EPA, some business topics and the new products/technology sessions.
RD4AG Staff were also on the program this year, Lee West to talk about the NAICC Ag Leadership Program and Steve West presented to the QA sessions about "What QA's Need to Know about Crops"
It was a great week with old friends seen, new friends made and several pounds heavier after all the great New Orleans food!
