PEST PROSpectives

The Associate Certified Entomologist: Why Credentials Matter in Pest Control

• Pest Pros of Michigan

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You have heard us mention it on almost every episode: Associate Certified Entomologist. But what does it mean? Why does it matter to Pest Pros of Michigan customers?

In this special double episode of PEST PROSpectives, ACEs Tony Sorrentino and Amber Byars welcome special guest Alan Feuer - an ACE himself and an educator who helps educate those seeking the certification.


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Pest Pros of Michigan

PEST PROSpectives is a Livemic Communications production.

Richard Piet:

I'm Richard Piet. PEST PROSpectives. It's the Pest Pros of Michigan. We take a little liberty with the spelling prospectives because, after all, these are the pros the Pest Pros of Michigan. And not only that today we have a pro from New Mexico with us today. So let's talk about who these folks are. If you've been following us and we hope you will subscribe where you get podcasts You've heard Tony Sorrentino and Amber Byers, associate certified entomologists with Pest Pros, who've been on most of our episodes offering their expertise on a number of things stinging insects all the way to rodents and fruit flies.

Richard Piet:

Welcome to you both. Thanks, Richard. How are we doing, Richard? It's good to see you again Doing well. Thanks for being here. I want to welcome to Alan Feuer, also an associate certified entomologist and, mind you, a consultant in the industry, who ran his own pest control company for a number of years, also helped develop and was among the instructors of the associate certified entomologist prep master classes, among other things. So he brings a distinct perspective on what an ace is. Hello, alan.

Alan Feuer:

Hey, Richard and guys, it's good to be with you today. Well, it's good to have you with us.

Richard Piet:

So this is something we really want to try and understand. Right, what an ace is associate certified entomologist? We hear this, it sounds important, but we really want to know what that means, particularly from the perspective of someone who might decide they want a professional to help them with a pest control issue. It's important to understand with whom you're working Fair enough, alan, it's fair enough, absolutely.

Alan Feuer:

The ACE program came into existence in, I want to say, probably 2006, through the Entomological Society of America, nsoc that's a mouthful right. So NSOC is based in Annapolis, maryland, and what they do is they provide credentialing programs for entomology, and so they work with a lot of universities, they work with a lot of students that are writing white papers about in and around the entomological world, a lot of it's research and study. And around that time, roughly 20 years ago, they said there's gotta be something else for all these guys out there fighting the fight on the streets, the pest control operators. So what can we do? And so I heard about it, probably in 2007.

Alan Feuer:

And my boss at the time in this was in 2008,. I'm looking at my license card right here. He says I became an AIDS in May of 2008. He pushed me to it because I was like I didn't know nothing about it. I'd heard about it. He said, hey, why don't you take the exam while you're down at a conference in El Paso, texas? And I said, well, I really haven't prepared. He says, alan, you've taken all these courses, I've learned so much from you, you'll be fine. So I took the test and passed it at that point in time, and so I've been an ace since May of 08. And what I've recognized along the way is it really is a great credentialing program for those of us who are not afforded the opportunity, for whatever reason, to take entomological classes in college, and it gives us a credence and a sensibility and validity in the industry.

Richard Piet:

Yeah, I suppose it's important to point out early on here that associate certified entomologist is not just a title people use. This is a certification. There was study involved and an exam that had to be passed, and, mind you, it might not be all that simple. Right, that's correct.

Alan Feuer:

So, yeah, like I said, I was blessed to pass it on the first take. I think these folks passed it on the first shot too, Sure did, which is pretty rare. It's a pretty high failure rate because it's a challenging examination and so you have to know the material to be successful. And so it's not just some goofball thing. It's not a rubber stamp, right. It's not a participation award. There is something behind it. There's also some other things. So you have to have letters of recommendation from people of stature in the industry. You have to have been in the industry In my case it was seven years, Now it's five, right. And then, of course, you have to sign an agreement that you are going to live up to the status of ACE, which includes a code of ethics which is really important.

Tony Sorrentino:

I say this half in jest when Maria Maria is the owner of Pest Pros. She's also an associate certified entomologist and when she started studying that was four years before I took mine, so I joke at half in jest. I studied for that test for four years.

Richard Piet:

Well, again, you want to make sure you have a clear understanding of it, and you know, you probably hear it's not a piece of cake. You need to be ready for it. Is that fair, Amber?

Amber Byars:

Oh, it's absolutely fair. We're very lucky and blessed here at Pest Pros because we work so closely with people like Alan and Paul Bello that we had a kind of we had a little level up because we were doing master classes with Alan every week, weekly, for years. We were bringing our team into these trainings and so we were very, very involved with the next level of training through Truman's Guide. That's the book Alan worked off of to create his master classes and that is a huge part of the study course study prep course for the ACE exam. But I think it's like an 80-hour annotated study guideline that you want to follow prior to taking the exam, and I don't believe we were able to do that in the time that we were allotted prior to knowing we were going to take it. It was the years leading up to actually taking the exam that made us successful.

Richard Piet:

Yep. So, Alan, let's understand this. There are state-driven requirements for pest control, but this is more than that, yeah absolutely.

Alan Feuer:

You know we take a look at state licensure or certification. Every state uses a different term. What I look at like in the state of New Mexico, where I'm from, it's basically safety laws and regulations, personal protective equipment, record keeping and label language, and there's a little bit of hey. By the way, what bug is this? What animal is that? There's a little bit, but it's really like a fraction of the examination. Was that? There's a little bit, but it's really like a fraction of the examination.

Alan Feuer:

And I think that's okay for state licensing, because really that kind of training would be incumbent upon either you individually or the company you work for what the ACE certification does.

Alan Feuer:

It gives us this credential that the industry, through NSOC, has said we feel here's a good curriculum, here's some good texts that you ought to read, and then the test is based upon that and this takes you to the next level and there is a little bit of safety, there's a little bit of that in there. However, it then takes it to the next level on hey test, identification, the biology behavior of these animals, control measures, monitoring and then, of course, the code of ethics of how do you comport yourself with the industry, with society in general with your colleagues in your own company man, I can't say enough about all those things and it takes you to the next level. You know my parents said you know you go to college to prove you can gut it out sometimes. I mean, there's often a lot of neat things to learn in college, but you prove you're stick-to-it-ist. That's my take on it, tony talk about that.

Richard Piet:

So you had some experience, certainly in Amber II, in the field. But having had the exam, you are also bringing your field experience to some extent to the party right.

Tony Sorrentino:

Absolutely the practical application, like we had just talked about the state certifications and that's fine and well. It's like Alan said, it's safety, it's posting, it's all of the state regulations. The ACE certification is a deeper understanding of the biology and the behavior, like why are the fruit flies here? Why are the subterranean termites here? I'm not saying that everybody can't figure it out, but we have a more succinct understanding of biology and behavior and applying what we've learned in the field, because you could go up to 100 hundred different ant piles and it's a hundred different kinds of ants. Yeah, it's important. So understanding that and being able to identify and then properly provide a solution.

Richard Piet:

So, amber, when you brought your field experience plus this certification, you found probably the same kind of cohesiveness with both.

Amber Byars:

Absolutely. And you know, when I was listening to Tony, I kept thinking that it kind of brings me back to the ethical portion. The ethical part of having your ACE credential is like you can use all of that for the good, for the betterment of your clients, for the betterment of your staff, for yourself. You can take that and really use that to help people, take care of people, which I think is another big aspect of being an ace is that you just you know you use that to create a better environment, a safer environment, and I think that's really important.

Richard Piet:

So Alan, talk about that, the code of ethics part from the educator point of view. What do we need to get out of that as an ace, but also from the perspective of a potential client? Why should we be concerned about this and the importance of it?

Alan Feuer:

Yeah so, and again, I think it's fair to say a lot of folks are unaware of this program. Yeah, so, it's podcasts like this or any podcast for the industry to amplify and illuminate what goes on with ACE is important. So, coming back to the code of ethics the code of ethics again, you choose to be ethical, right? A lot of folks misunderstand ethics is like well, if I do this, I'll win. No, oftentimes you're ethical and it costs you something, right? It's almost like no good deed goes unpunished. So there's always going to be a cost to being ethical, because basically you're choosing the harder path, the path that's in the sun and the light, right, and you have to choose to hold yourself accountable to that. Now, in typical code of ethics you mean number one we don't get to guess about the pests. Like, if we see a pest, it's incumbent upon us to identify it to a reasonable taxonomical level. And what does that mean? We're also required to do a code of ethics to provide our clients with options. Mr Jones, these are a couple of options. Here's like do nothing, wait and see, here's the middle of the road. Or here's the okay, here's all the stuff we can apply. And so we've got to provide that to our customer.

Alan Feuer:

We have a code of ethics that we're not going to talk disparagingly about our colleagues in the industry. Now that does not mean if they're abjectly scientifically wrong that we can't say that. But we're not going to use terms like well, that guy's a fool, he's a crumb on, he's a you know quid muffin. I'm trying to use all the nice curse words that the Christians allow. So we're not, but we can't even say that. We can't disparage people Say no, I disagree with their findings.

Alan Feuer:

And here is objectively why. It's not that I feel that what they told you, as Tony said, it's this ant and that ant. Those are objectively not carpenter ants, those are harvester ants. Now I can understand the mistake, but that needs to be corrected. So we have to handle it that way. We have to be mindful, we have to follow state. We promise to follow state regulations. We've promised not to file any reports that are state regulations. We've promised not to file any reports that are inaccurate, things like that. So that's a general look, without me whipping out the list from the website. Those are the things that are important to me.

Richard Piet:

Amber, you made a comment about code of ethics coming back to actually helping people. Expand on that, if you would, and what that means.

Amber Byars:

What I mean by that is what's best for your client or the person that we're dealing with their environment, their home, their financial status, maybe something that you know. This is just a very in real time example I'll share If I don't have to sell you something and you can handle it yourself, and I know you would enjoy handling it yourself maybe I know you would enjoy handling it yourself, maybe that's the better option here and maybe I should talk to you about that. That's what I mean. We follow the IPM model very regularly, and when we talk about properly identifying a pest, the IPM model includes that, and so we're going to properly identify, inspect, we're going to take some action. Then we're going to discuss with you our plan of action and what might work best and that's where that example comes in is hmm, you have these gaps on your home. I could charge you a couple hundred bucks to do this, but I don't think you want me to do that really. I think you actually want to do that yourself, and so I'm going to bring that up.

Richard Piet:

IPM being integrated pest management. In fact, we've done an episode on that. We have, we have so scroll back and have a listen, if you haven't already. That makes sense to you, tony, what Amber was saying, absolutely.

Tony Sorrentino:

I can think of another real-time example from yesterday. I was on a call with a client and we just did the podcast about small flies. He's got drain flies and they keep showing up all over the house. So I'm doing my observational biology work, I'm asking him the right questions, I you know, what have you done for this? He went through everything that he'd done and he'd done all the right things, the all the things that I was going to do. So I made a suggestion from my experience that he may be better suited to deal with that, because this may be a plumbing issue, there may be a plumbing vulnerability, that the path of least resistance is the crack. And now we've got drain flies all throughout the house. He was overwhelmed with gratitude for that. He was like thank you so much. I never even thought about that, and then we signed him up. So the name of the game is purposefully serving and I thrive on the acquisition of knowledge and being able to share that with people.

Richard Piet:

So, alan, you get your ACE and it's done right.

Alan Feuer:

Well, are we ever really done, you know? So, yeah, if we're talking about, like, maintaining your ACE certification, we have a three year renewal and every three years we have to have 18 hours of I'm going to call it industry involvement. I'd like to call it a continuing education. That could be part of it. But you can claim I wrote a paper, an article, I taught a class, I did volunteer work, like we did pro bono bed bug or roach work. You just document that and that's all good.

Alan Feuer:

With NSOC they just want to see that you've, you give them 18 hours of not just earning a living but you've done 18 hours of specific stuff to the benefit of the industry and they want that documented. And of course there's some fees and dues, that there's always money involved. But and some people would be cynical and say, oh, it's a money grab yeah, I guess if you're really down here, you're looking at it that way. I gladly write that check every three years and I gladly send them my CEs and the most of that for me is teaching. So I teach classes and they go yep, sounds great, makes a lot of sense and so. But I also need CEs to keep my seat license so you can get cool tubers with one stone, if you can pardon the pun, so we can get that all done.

Richard Piet:

Yeah. So in other words, it's not all about taking courses per se that's part of it, but also your involvement in the industry can count toward continuing education credits, I suppose.

Alan Feuer:

Yeah, absolutely so. Yeah, you can. If you want to just sit in six hours of training, which may or may not be required by your state now, but but NSOC and ACE require it, that's great. But yes, you can. Again, you can volunteer. It's gotta be pest control. You can't just like well, I went to a soup kitchen, no, I went to the soup kitchen and solve their pest control issue. Or I taught a class, or I held a buyer's you know. I held a class to teach buyers what they should look for when they buy a house, just as long as you document it and that's all they're looking for. It's not a tremendous burden and mine's going to burn out on the 31st of December, so I'll have to provide all that and again write them a check. So that's all going to happen there as well. And of course you have to act ethically and if you get caught acting unethically, there is a process through NSOC to say bad boy and clean up your act or see you later, sayonara.

Richard Piet:

Yeah, you could, by not acting ethically, risk the certification Right. So let's talk about what kind of experiences that a person can benefit from as an ace. By that I mean the experiences of those who have gone before them, and associating themselves in this environment probably helps to gain knowledge, does it not?

Amber Byars:

That's kind of what I was talking about earlier with the preparation for the ACE and how much study time is required and all the study materials. We, like I said, are so blessed because we are so involved in industry leaders, just like Alan and Paul and other people that have Dr Frischman. You know we have been involved with people that have built this industry and it has been invaluable and I think without that there's no doubt that. You know the ACE exam may have taken a few times to pass, but we have been, we were taught for years, since I started about seven years ago. We met Alan about a year and a half into my career here and since then we've been working right under him and he's been teaching us and we've been learning everything along the way and that in itself has been a huge part of becoming an ace.

Alan Feuer:

We definitely see further because we stand on the shoulders of giants, you know. Thank you. Yeah, it was people like that and yeah, here's where I'm proud of the ACE program and many people in the industry, even those that don't have an ACE. There's so many people in this industry that really want to do great and they will help you. I think the ACE again brings it into the light and it's kind of a club and, to my knowledge, most people who've earned the certification take it in the industry. A lot of people see it.

Alan Feuer:

Now I'm going to I'll put a negative out there first. There are certain people that are either jealous or they don't clearly see the value, so they'll mock it Now. They mock it because they fear it, or they mock it because they're challenged or they don't want to spend the time, or perhaps we I'm a former Marine and we're insufferable, especially on November 10th. You know, everyone knows November 10th is the Marine Corps birthday and if you don't, I'll tell you Okay. So as an ace, we can. We can be a little insufferable, but there's a little pride there. So we have to, we have to check that, but we have to. We also have to go back and say so where's the true benefit? Company of great people. We've read books and texts that they've written, we've done research, we've attended classes. They've taught and we've worked hard to earn it.

Alan Feuer:

Nobody just walks in and passes the ACE without prior study. Okay, it's not designed that way. But then what happens is and so in my situation, I've been in situations where I've been and I just wrapped a course and these guys took it is it's integrated pest management in sensitive facilities, environment. So, uh, food production, pharmaceutical production, schools, hospitals, things like that almost all of those places are going to have a requirement on the pest control process for them. We need someone that's got an entomologist on staff and we have to go. Well, we we can't call ourselves entomologists per se, we can call ourselves associate certified entomologists. Is that satisfactory? And they go. Does that work? Yeah, it works for me. So that's what walks us into these places.

Alan Feuer:

This walks me into Johnson and Johnson. This walks me into Clarion. This walks me into Bueno Foods. This walks me into Rio Rancho Public Schools or the Presbyterian healthcare system. Those things walk me in. But, most importantly, when I walk in there with my training that gets me through ACE, I see things and I understand things that if I didn't have that training which was required to pass the test. I'm walking in with experience. I see things that other people don't see, and there is an experience factor in there, but also the testing. Well, what does this mean? What does that mean? You have to question yourself as you prepare for the examination. It's just not reading a bunch of crap, it's reading stuff and comprehending it. That's where we're going, so hopefully that answers that question.

Richard Piet:

Do corporate clients and even residential customers do they say how do I know you guys know your stuff. What does ACE mean? Any of you do you get asked that question?

Tony Sorrentino:

I have in the field. I stand you see it on my name tag I stand on my ace accreditation. I earned it and I wear like a badge of honor. I talk about it because it's important to me. It was important enough to my wife when she I'm going to get an ace and I was like I don't know what that means. But now I know and I understand what it means to our clients. It means to our team and it means what it means to our clients. It means to our team and it means what it means to the company.

Amber Byars:

Yeah, when I've been asked what's an ACE In as layman's terms as I can get, because clients don't really understand what we're talking about you know what we're talking about the importance of the. You know the entomological conditions and behavioral conditions and behavioral so I tell them it means that I spent a lot of my time understanding pests in the relationship to your environment. It gives me a leg up on a lot of our competitors. They don't have, they don't invest in themselves like we've been invested in, and I think that is as much as you know I can say to make an impact there.

Alan Feuer:

I think the reality check on that is, as I said, there are certain high-level businesses that have specified in their operating procedures that they need an entomological consultant, so we walk in there. Most laypeople, most homeowners, have no idea. They don't even know what entomology means because you have to explain it to them. I'm a book scientist Cool, that's the short story, yeah and so they don't see that. But what I will tell you, though, is you have to understand what that means, right, and you have to understand what what that means to them, even though your credentials, your letters after your name, are irrelevant, like you could be the PhD of something.

Amber Byars:

Yeah.

Alan Feuer:

And you have to recognize that, even though we're proud of it, I never walk in. Hey, I'm an ace. I've been doing this so many years. I'm flexing my muscles. They don't care. What we have to do is be the journey to become an ace.

Alan Feuer:

Whether it's newer for these people or almost 20 years old for me 17 years old to be more specific, it's generally irrelevant to the consumer. What is important to the consumer is my competency and my belief in myself, and that's what the ACE gives me. Now I will tell you in the industry, I expect more from an ACE. I expect more from Tony and Amber. You're better than that, right, so behave like an ace. I know what you had to do to pass this test. I also know the code of conduct, the ethics that you agreed to, and I will correct someone when they're outside those lines as gently as I possibly can. You're supposed to do better than that, so I use that. If I keep a chip in my or I keep a token in my pocket, that's the one I keep, if I keep a chip in my or I keep a token in my pocket.

Richard Piet:

that's the one I keep. So I would suspect then any of you would encourage a client potentially to ask you how are you qualified to do this job? And that question can provide a way to talk about ACE and that certification, the importance of it. The other thing I lingered on, alan, that you said is a corporate client, when they're sending out a bid for a pest control quote, could in that RFP say you have to be an ACE to bid this and you're automatically leveling that up right, they may not use the term ACE.

Alan Feuer:

They'll say we need someone with entomological credentials involved, and what some companies would have been forced to do is to bring in a consultant with those credentials. And I had to say, okay, will this work for you? Because I can't call myself an outright entomologist, because I don't have that credential and that's part of our ethics. I have to say I'm an associate surgeon and what does that mean, alan? Well, I'm a field entomologist and I have to say I'm the dude, that's, I'm meeting the bugs and the people in the field. Okay, I can operate and I can communicate with a doctor of entomology or someone with an MS or a BS in entomology. I can talk to them. I feel I can with my experience in pedigree. And some of them may even look down on the ACE program like, oh well, you guys are. Says no, no, no, I get it, you got a degree.

Alan Feuer:

I wasn't in that point in my life. Like, for example, the state of Mexico. There are zero entomological degrees available. You could take biology classes, introduction entomology. You will not graduate in a New Mexico school with a degree in entomology. It doesn't exist. So it's an opportunity for someone like me who was never in that position without leaving the state, and I didn't know I wanted to be an entomologist. I didn't know I wanted to do this when I was 17. I found out later. Yeah, and that's most of our cases.

Alan Feuer:

So yeah there you go.

Richard Piet:

Well, I would imagine that any of you would encourage folks to ask about it. And what are those credentials? Whether you are a residential customer, potentially, or a corporate customer, ask about what credentials your pest control professional is bringing to the table, and we appreciate this insightful, understanding conversation about what this means and the importance of it. After all, we call this pest prospective, so we're not surprised to hear some of those pest perspectives. We'll call them prospectives. We'll stick with the name. All right, and a bunch of aces on this episode of the program, as generally there are, but extra ones this time with Alan Feuer, Tony Sorrentino and Amber Byars of the Pest Pros of Michigan. Click the link in the show notes and ask more questions. Click the link in the show notes and ask more questions. Perhaps you're ready for a pest pro to stop by and talk to you a little bit about IPM or how we might help sort out your pest control situation. Reach out Happy to help, also inviting you to subscribe to Pest Perspectives for more episodes like these. Thanks to you all. Thanks, richard.