|
|
Launched in 1986, the NCUE grew out of informal conversations by several urban entomologists at the National Pest Management Association Convention & Trade Show in San Antonio, Texas, according to Dr. Patricia Zungoli of Clemson University, the original committee chairperson. “We were standing in the corridor of a conference center discussing the fact that the Entomological Society of America didn’t have a place for people in urban entomology and someone said, ‘Why don’t we have our own conference?’ So I called the first meeting.”
Members of the Planning Committee for the inaugural conference, held at the University of Maryland, included Dr. Gary Bennett, Purdue University; Dr. Philip Hamman, Texas A&M University (retired); Dr. George Rambo, GR Consulting Services; Dr. William Robinson, Urban Pest Control Research and Consulting; Dr. Michael Rust, University of California – Riverside; Dr. Claude Thomas, Thomas & Associates; Dr. Eugene Wood, University of Maryland (retired); and Dr. Patricia Zungoli, University of Maryland. The goals and objectives of the conference, as stated in the preface to the original proceedings, were “to foster interest and activity in the area of urban entomology among university, government and industry personnel through information exchange.”
“The goal in the beginning was to create a conference where the research community, extension and industry could come together and exchange information relevant to all three groups,” Zungoli said. “We were just happy that it worked. That we planned the conference and people actually came and we could pay the bills.”
Since that time, the National Conference on Urban Entomology has played an important role in nurturing the next generation of urban entomologists and serving as a forum for greater collaboration between the research community and the pest management industry. “This is one of the few forums where only urban entomology topics are discussed,” observes Dr. Roger Gold of Texas A&M University, secretary/treasurer of the organization. “This is the future of the industry.”
Members of the 2006 NCUE Planning Committee include Dini Miller, Virginia Tech University, conference co-chair; Robert Kopanic, S.C.Johnson & Son, Inc., conference co-chair; Richard Houseman, University of Missouri; Bob Cartwright, Syngenta Professional Products; Jules Silverman, North Carolina State University; Mark Coffelt, Dupont Professional Products; Roger Gold, Texas A&M University; Gary Bennett, Purdue University; Bill McClellan, Dupont Professional Products; Shripat Kamble, University of Nebraska; John Paige III, Bayer Environmental Science; Bob Davis, BASF Corporation; Mike Merchant, Texas A&M University; and Dan Suiter, University of Georgia.
Corporate sponsors of the four-day conference include BASF Corporation, Bayer Environmental Science, Dow AgroSciences, DuPont Professional Products, FMC Corporation, McLaughlin-Gormley King, Nisus Corporation, Orkin Pest Control, Pest Control Technology magazine, S.C. Johnson & Son, Inc., Syngenta Professional Products, Terminix International and Whitmire Micro-Gen Research Laboratories.
The conference runs through Wednesday, May 24.