getting it out

[James J. Goodyear <Goodyear.jim@epa.gov>]

An excellent way to get information to professionals is to distribute it at meetings of their organizations.  The simplest way is to present a "Poster Paper" that addresses a specific subject.  The EPA employees who present the posters would stand by them during  times that are announced in the organization's program.  They can talk to people who visit and distribute literature.  

The information is usually technical so EPA needs to get it to people who can understand it and take it back to their colleges, schools, businesses, and governments.  They would apply it and thus get it to the larger group of interested nonprofessionals.

We in the Ecological Effects Division of the Office of Pesticide Programs have used this method to distribute information about what we are doing in the identification of pesticide problems in aquifers and the pesticide incident database.  Meetings can be national, regional, state, or local.  They can be scientific (The Wildlife Society or the American Society of Toxicology), professional (Vertebrate Pest Conference or the American Society for Testing and Materials), community action (to control  pest rats, deer, or birds), etc.  

EPA has done a poor job of presenting information to Pest Control Operators.  As a result they seem to think that EPA hates them and even that EPA is trying to put PCOs out of business.  If EPA could present a poster at one of their meetings, they could be given a more objective point of view.  (I apologize for using pesticide related examples, but that's what I know).