Virtual and On-Demand Pest Management Canada Conference a Big Draw for Attendees

Hundreds of pest management professionals from across the country participated in the Canadian Pest Management Association’s annual conference in April.

According to CPMA Executive Director Michael Bentley, 210 attendees joined the live webinar event that kicked off the 2022 Pest Management Canada conference on April 1. In addition, 707 registrations were received for the conference’s six on-demand presentations, which could be accessed through April 30.

“We are overwhelmed by the engagement of the industry in this year’s virtual conference,” said Bentley.

Pest Management Canada will return to an in-person format in 2023.  It will be held Feb. 2-4, 2023, at the JW Marriott Parq in Vancouver.

Rollo named CPMA president elect

During the 2022 virtual Pest Management Canada conference, Sean Rollo was voted in as president-elect of the Canadian Pest Management Association.

He will take the reins from Nicholas Holland, owner of Calgary-based Peregrine General Pest Control, in February 2023.

This will be the second time Rollo has served as president. A technical and business development manager for Orkin Canada in Moncton, N.B., he previously was CPMA president from 2019 to 2021, during the pandemic.

“I felt I had some unfinished business; COVID kind of threw a monkey wrench into things,” said Rollo. Most of his first term was spent convincing Canadian governments that pest control was an essential service. “In the early stages of COVID, we were not considered an essential service,” he said.

In his second term, Rollo plans to focus on getting continuing education credits accepted Canada-wide for recertification of pesticide applicators. “We still have provinces that don’t offer it; Ontario being the biggest beast we’d like to tackle,” he said. Rollo said continuous education is common in other professions and essential to provide safe and effective pesticide applications.