TNLA REGIONS

May 2008 Newsletter

Foreman's Workshop Wrap Up

We had another terrific Foreman’s Workshop!  Approximately 130 landscape and nursery workers spent a long day learning and refreshing their knowledge in many subjects that are vital to the professional performance of their jobs.  As we all know this subsequently helps our entire industry improve.  Thank you, owners and managers, for allowing your employees to become involved in this on-going skills and knowledge improvement program and thank you, employees for making the choice to become involved in our industry.

Many Region II members contributed so much to make this years Foreman’s Workshop a success; we want to thank everyone who helped.  We had great speakers, most of them presenting their program in both English and Spanish.  Carmelo Orellana of Landscape Art had a great program on leadership.  Luis Andrade and Rick McNabb of Ewing Irrigation presented information on controller programming.  Carlton Colmenares with NovAgro did his usual fantastic job with a program covering basic botany.  James Shelton and Mark Hernandez of OSHA had an informative program on landscape safety, complete with gross pictures.  Curtis Wilder of John Deere Landscapes/Lesco had a fantastic program on fertilization with Carmelo Orellana taking the Spanish room.  Our Driving Safety instructor didn’t make it to the program at all so Alan Wolfe and Kyle Franklin in the English room and Carmelo Orellana and Carlton Colmenares in the Spanish room did an impromptu program reminding everyone to take the time to drive safe, seatbelts, check trailer lights and loads, etc.  We will all soon be so busy that it will be tempting to skip the basic precautions just because we’re running late. 

Kyle Franklin with Embark Services was very busy during the workshop.  He provided and operated the audiovisual equipment the entire day and along with Carmelo Orellana of Landscape Art took care of speaker introductions, handled the raffles and generally kept us on track all day.  Victor Flaherty of Plants for All Seasons gave a welcoming address stressing the importance of education and involvement.  Jim Curtice of Southwest Properties Landscaping took care of registration, printed the certificates and generally spent lots of time taking care of details.  Jay Williams of Landscape Art took care of getting our lunch and arranging for lunch sponsors.  Mike Hugg of Embark Services lined up the vendors for the equipment demonstration and was on hand all day to take care of everything else that needed taking care of, and there’s always lots of that!  John Catapano with Western Horticultural Services, Inc. arranged for breakfast sponsors and then purchased and set up all the food and coffee.  Alan Wolfe was taking pictures of all the speakers and attendees during the day. 

Lunch sponsors were Doug York with Ewing Irrigation, Craig Berlin of Hunter Industries, and Mark Milstead with WWIP Corporation.  Richard Stamper of Living Earth Technology and Lauri Garlotte of Nelson Plant Food were our breakfast sponsors; this is the seventh year Richard has been a breakfast sponsor at the Foreman’s Workshop.  Many thanks to all these sponsors!  Their contributions make it possible to improve the quality of the Foreman’s Workshop

We had several vender/sponsors who donated $100 each to help defray the cost of copying, soft drinks, raffle items and numerous other items needed to make the day a success.  The following venders participated in this year’s equipment demonstration; Brookside Equipment - John Deere, Waukesha-Pearce Industries – Exmark, and Rental Distributing Co. – Echo, and Horizon – Exmark, Shindawa, and Echo.  They brought lots of hats, T-shirts and goodies to raffle throughout the day.  Thanks for your support!

We always raffle items after the speakers that pertain to the programs, but this year Mike Hugg suggested that we have a cash prize raffle at the end of the day.  Needless to say, it was well received by the attendees!  We raffled 5-$20 and 1-$100 prizes along with the first aid kits, roadside emergency kits, magnifying loops, calculators, calendar/organizers and volt meters.

Again allow me to reiterate our thanks to you for sending your crews.  We had 130 attendees this year, and all went away with a better understanding of things very important to their jobs and to your bottom line. 

It takes a lot of people to put on an event like this one, and they all take time out of their busy schedules to volunteer to do something important.  Next time you talk to the people mentioned in this article, don’t forget to tell them you appreciate their hard work.

Thanks So Much to Everyone!

To obtain any certification brochure that includes an exam application, please contact the Certification Department at the TNLA office: Phone 512-280-5182 or toll-free 800-880-0343 or download an application here for TMCNP, TCNP or TCLP.

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