A round-up of highlights and award-winners from this year’s AEPMA Conference.
We recently wrapped up another successful AEPMA Conference – and what a conference it was! This year saw record attendance numbers, and it was wonderful to see so many familiar, as well as so many new faces, come together to learn more about each other and the Industry.
Our theme for this year’s conference was Pest Management in a Changing Market and accordingly, much of the conference program and our selection of keynote speakers, really highlighted and addressed the changes that are increasingly prevalent and impacting on our industry. Not only are there new innovations driving the Australian pest management industry, but change management and how we service our clients and the broader public is also receiving greater attention.
Particularly well attended was our ‘Diversity in Pest Management session’, which included a very knowledgeable and experienced panel of experts, as well as our session on ‘Digital Marketing and Social Media’, tools which have become such an important part of how we interact with our customers and generate new business.
The conference also provided the opportunity for us to announce the 2018 Pest Manager of the Year winner, which was awarded to Termitrust. BASF once again sponsored the award and we received a record number of applications of an exceptionally high standard. Rachel Carson from BASF and I were privileged to announce the winners across the four categories at the gala dinner on the Thursday night. For those of you that were unable to be there, the winners for 2018 were:
- Micro Business – Riverside Pest Management
- Fewer Than 10 Employees – Multipest
- More Than 10 Employees – Termitrust
- South Pacific – Fastkil
At our Leadership Dinner on the Friday night, we announced the 2018 winner of the inaugural Bayer Individual Excellence in Professional Pest Management Award, which was awarded to the late Doug Howick.
This new award recognises service to the commercial pest management industry beyond expectation, and endeavours in the areas of customer service, innovation and individual excellence. Doug was a well-deserved recipient of the award, and his wife Sigrid accepted the award on his behalf.
The AEPMA Codes of Practice were also a very prominent feature at the conference, and for good reason. In a landmark decision, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission — for the first time ever — registered an accredited industry codes of practice, namely the Code of Best Practice for Termite Management and the Code of Best Practice for Termite Management During Construction.
The Codes of Practice open up a new world of doing business in termite control and management and the sessions explored those opportunities as well as highlighting the importance and relevance of codes of practice. We also announced that a new Code of Best Practice for Rodent Control would soon be released and available to the industry — stay tuned.
On behalf of the AEPMA Board, I would like to again thank all our sponsors and exhibitors who helped make the 2018 conference the tremendous success that it was. Special thanks must also go to our keynote speakers, whose knowledge and expertise were, and will continue to be, of great value to us all. Finally, a huge thank you to everyone that attended the conference — your participation and investment in our Industry does not go unnoticed and we look forward to seeing you all again soon.
