08/28/2025

Kansas City Repeat: UPFDA Board Returns to the City of Fountains

The UPFDA Board enjoyed their 2023 Board retreat held in Kansas City so much, that they returned for a second iteration of the same meeting held August 12 - 13, 2024 at The View at Briarcliff. The conference facility adjacent to the Courtyard by Marriot made for a convenient walk to the spacious and bright Board meeting and planning sessions. Being the hometown of the current president, Cisse Spragins, also had its perks. Cisse treated the group to another wonderful meal at Trezo Mare Restaurant & Lounge where the group enjoyed an amazing meal.

This is the one Board meeting held in person each year and UPFDA uses this opportunity to build closer relationships among its members and to conduct deeper planning sessions that often result in new and expanding programs for UPFDA. We had great in-person participation from many Board members, and several joined remotely.  Guests are always welcome, and encouraged, to attend this annual Board meeting. This year, we enjoyed the company of several guests including, Chuck Kaz, The Bug Stop, Todd Pawlowski, Shaun Cook, Pelsis, and Shane Dooley, FORSHAW. When asked why he made the decision to attend this meeting as guest, Shaun Cook shared with Andrea Coron, UPFDA’s Executive Director, that he saw it as an opportunity to forge a closer relationship with this group of leaders, and that he relished the opportunity to contribute to UPFDA’s newest initiatives.

Lasting less than a full 24 hours, a lot of work is packed into this event. The Board convened for the official Board meeting at 2:00 pm on August 12^th and covered a lot of ground. Cisse led the meeting, which will be her last Board meeting before handing over the presidency to Patrick Lynch.  The majority of the work focused on defining recommended Bylaw changes that will be voted on by the membership during the membership meeting at PestWorld, planning for the 2024 Board elections which will also be held during the membership meeting, and siting plans for the 2025 Spring Conference. Heather Alonso provided the Board with a thorough regulatory update (see article in this newsletter) and Michael Kelly provided information on marketing and upcoming public relations efforts.

After the Board meeting, the Board instigated some deeper programmatic work. The group conducted a Brainstorming Session exploring new benefits that UPFDA could offer to members and ways to serve the industry. Each person shared at least 3 expectations they have as a member of UPFDA or programs they have seen as a benefit in other organizations. As a result, a laundry list of ideas was generated, including:

• Money-saving / aggregate buying benefits
• Webinar training
• “Ask the Expert” mentoring programs
• Committee Work - enhanced opportunities for member’s staff to be involved in
• On Boarding for new suppliers to the industry
• Internship Training Program - to entice talent into our industry
• Fundraising Initiatives
• Quarterly Hot Topic Discussions.

Moving forward, the Board will prioritize some of these ideas and assign them to committees to define the best way to implement one or two of these ideas.

Before we broke for the day, the Board shifted to revisiting an idea for a Data Aggregate Project that had been introduced as a concept at the Spring Conference. An ad-hoc committee further flushed out the concept over the intervening months and was ready to get the Board involved in furthering the project. Cisse invited special guest, Todd Pawlowski, to make a presentation to the Board about how this type of project proved to be a successful member benefit when he worked in a completely different industry. The idea to replicate a similar project as a benefit for UPFDA members seems to have some support, but also raised many questions and concerns from some members. Todd was invited to give an overview of the project, clarify the goals and outcome of the project, and define a strategy and implementation if the decision was made to move forward.

After Todd’s recap, the Board took a deep dive into the data that could be collected with specifics on what and how to ask for the information. The group broke into 2 teams and attempted to define possible survey questions. After coming back together, both teams had difficulty defining quantitative data but found many areas where qualitative data could be useful. Some examples of qualitative data the groups defined were:

• Healthcare
• Recruitment
• Retention
• Benefits
• AI - using AI effectively and developing policies for its use.

After much discussion, the Board decided to implement a test survey to determine the appetite membership has for this type of data and their willingness to participate and share data. Essentially the Data Aggregation Project would allow members to confidentially share information we already share informally in person through a more structured platform that can be more broadly enjoyed by all members. Look for a short survey to come your way this Fall. UPFDA will be eager to learn how you think an ongoing program might be viewed as a benefit.