May 2019
The Inspector
It's time to renew your membership! The membership year runs from July 1 through June 30 annually. To ensure you don't miss out on any member benefits, be sure to renew today! Do so by logging into your MyNPMA account, or by clicking the link below. You can print the form and mail directly to NPMA with payment.
We're moving our State Conference! Due to a unique opportunity, the Board of Directors has elected to move the dates and locations of our November annual event. Mark your calendars for November 13-14. We'll be staying in Lancaster, but moving to the Spooky Nook Sports Complex, a one-of-a-kind sports and conference center. Check it out here! We'll be offering more great speakers and look forward to seeing you there!
2019 Platinum Partners
Continuing Education
Technical Spotlight
Pesticide Signal Words

Written by Techletter. Reprinted with permission. www.techletter.com.

Do you know what signal words are? They're required by EPA and you look at them every time you choose or use a pesticide product. The signal word is the large, capitalized word that stands alone on the front of the container's label. The signal word alerts you to the toxicity of the product to people and there are only three possibilities: CAUTION, WARNING, or DANGER.

  • CAUTION: The product is low in toxicity, being only slightly toxic or relatively nontoxic with only a slight potential to cause illness or eye or skin irritation.
  • WARNING: The product is moderately toxic if eaten, absorbed through the skin, or inhaled, or it causes moderate eye or skin irritation.
  • DANGER: The product is highly toxic by at least one route of exposure. If the product may be highly toxic when eaten, absorbed through skin, or inhaled, the label must also show the word POISON in red letters on the front panel.

How does EPA Decide which signal word is correct?

EPA requires certain study results from the pesticide's manufacturer in order to accurately gauge how toxic or poisonous the product might be to people. Required studies determine toxicity by oral exposure (eating the product), inhalation exposure (breathing the product), or dermal exposure (contact with the skin), and exposure to the eyes and skin that could cause irritation. The study that shows the highest reaction or toxicity level is the one that is used to determine the product's signal word. So, if tests on a particular product showed low toxicity to animals when it was eaten or inhaled, but caused high toxicity when applied to the skin, then EPA would assign that pesticide product a DANGER signal word because of the results from the skin exposure tests.

  • The assigned signal word describes the acute, short-term toxicity of the formulated product, and does not necessarily address effects from long-term exposure to the pesticide.
  • The signal word describes the toxicity of the formulated pesticide product as it is packaged and not the concentrated form of the product. The formulated product may be diluted and have a CAUTION signal word on the label while the full-strength concentrated form of the same pesticide may have a DANGER signal word.
  • The only pesticide products that are not required to display a signal word on the label are those that fall into the lowest toxicity category in all routes of exposure (oral, dermal, inhalation, and eye and skin irritation).
  • the statement "KEEP OUT OF REACH OF CHILDREN" must appear with the signal word on all labels. No matter what the signal word, there is no pesticide that is absolutely safe at high enough doses. All pose some degree of risk.
Small Business Spotlight
AI Is Within Reach for Small Business Marketing

It's time to level the marketing playing field.

Originally published on entrepreneur.com

Limited budgets have traditionally left small businesses at a disadvantage when looking to market themselves. Thanks to affordable artificial intelligence (AI) tools coming to the market -- everything from Adobe’s Marketo to Salesforce’s Pardot to our solution,  LOCALiQ -- that’s all about to change. These tools are opening up new doors to advanced targeting and optimization that previously were reserved for larger organizations.

However, for startups and small businesses that also presents a new, rightfully intimidating learning curve. Artificial intelligence belongs in the realm of computer geniuses, right? Wrong. It belongs to you, the marketer. But where do you start and get up to speed?

The stakes

The competition has never been more fierce for small businesses looking to stay alive. Amazon, for example, is looking to own everything from local grocery delivery to pharmaceuticals and household goods. Small-to-medium sized businesses (SMB), not working with a billion-dollar budget, can very quickly be eaten up and pushed out. The stakes couldn't be any higher to grow and retain customers -- in some cases existing customers represent 40 percent of revenue -- and AI is going to help level the marketing playing field.

Trial and error exercises in marketing are costly, and most small businesses can’t afford the risk of tactics that may or may not have the right impact on customers. Through the application of an affordable AI tool, marketers can tackle this uncertainty and benefit from recommendations for search, social and mobile advertising that are already optimized to provide the best results and drive traffic to best performing ad options. No more wasting money to “see if it works.”

Upcoming Events
Join us at our upcoming 2019 events!

Central Region Fall Seminar – Tuesday, August 20 (Park Inn, Mechanicsburg, PA)
Western Region Fall Seminar - Thursday, August 29 (Doubletree, Cranberry Twp., PA)
Eastern Region Fall Seminar – Thursday, September 12 (Wyndham, Trevose, PA)
Northeast Region Fall Seminar – Thursday, September 26 (Radisson Hotel, Scranton, PA) 
Annual State Conference – Wednesday and Thursday, November 12-14 (Spooky Nook Sports, Lancaster, PA) Note the date and location change!

The Eastern Division continues to hold its monthly meetings with varying topics of discussion on the second Thursday of every month at the Crowne Plaze in Trevose. For more information on monthly topics and speakers, contact Sue at (215) 331-1121.
Silver Partners
Industry Updates
Spotted Lanternfly
For up-to-date information on the Spotted Lanternfly and the current quarantine zone, visit the PA Department of Agriculture's website at the link below.

Bronze Partners
Legislative Update
The information below represents legislative activity (including bill introductions) that has occurred since the last newsletter. For a full listing of legislation that Versant is tracking for PPMA, please contact us at (717) 635-2320 or cwright@versantstrategies.net. Activity marked HCO or SCO indicates a co-sponsorship memo which precedes the actual introduction of legislation and is designed to secure the support of other legislators prior to introduction as a bill.

HB 21 - Helm, Sue (R) - Amends the Engineer, Land Surveyor and Geologist Registration Law, providing for the regulation of the practice of home inspection; and making a related repeal.

This legislation is of particular interest to PPMA. The bill has been refered to the House Professional Licensure Committee where it awaits action.

HCO 1764 Solomon, Jared (D) - Modernizes and overhauls the Landlord and Tenant Act.

The co-sponsorship memorandum has been filed. We await the filing of the legislation.
REMINDER from NPMA
To update your company's service area, please follow the steps below:
  1. Log on to the Manage My Group area of the NPMA website. Please note: in order to access the "Manage My Group" area of the NPMA website, you must be a company administrator. 
  2. Click on "Company Information" from the drop down menu.
  3. Scroll to the bottom of the page to find the Service Area section.
  4. Download the excel template found on this page.
  5. Update this template to include all of the zip codes that you service.
  6. Save the file on your computer.
  7. In the Service Area section click Choose File. Locate the excel template file that you just saved. Click open.
  8. Click Upload file.
Once you've completed these steps your service on Find-a-Pro is instantly updated to include these new zip codes. 
If you are having problems accessing please contact NPMA at (703) 352-6762 or  npma@pestworld.org .
Articles of Interest
Spring has sprung, and while it brings joy--from the warm sun to fragrant flowers--it also can bring annoyance, like seasonal allergies and the rebirth of insects and pests. One of those pests is the Spotted Lanternfly (SLF), and hundreds of thousands of them have just begun to hatch around... - Penn Live, Patriot-News

Heather Leach was driving to a Berks County park in August to follow up on a tip about something killing spotted lanternflies when she saw a bunch of grape vines and trees of heaven ? a favorite target of the invasive bugs. Leach, an extension associate at Penn State Entomology, pulled over to grab... - Allentown Morning Call