FAQ – Frequently Asked Questions

What is NPSEC?

NPSEC (http://npsec.us/) is a not for profit corporation (application for IRS 501c.3 non-profit in process) whose mission is to serve and support extension Pesticide Safety Education Programs (PSEPs) in every state and U.S. territory. Startup funding was provided by industry and the center is now self-sufficient. NPSEC will continue to work with a variety of stakeholders, including industry, to meet the needs of PSEPs.

How do you differentiate yourself from other organizations like the American Association of Pesticide Safety Educators (AAPSE), the National Stakeholder Team (NST), the National Pesticide Information Center (NPIC), or the Pesticide Educational Resources Collaborative (PERC)?

AAPSE (https://aapse.wildapricot.org/) is a professional organization with a membership structure. Members come from public and private entities, government, business and academia. AAPSE is involved, through its members, with education, outreach and research which directly benefits pest managers, policy makers, and the public. AAPSE’s primary purpose since its founding is to provide a voice on the issues of the day initially for PSEPs, more recently for state and federal agencies, and now anyone involved in pesticide safety education.

NST is an ad hoc, voluntary group of stakeholders, made up of SLAs, PSEPs, federal agency representatives, members of professional organizations, and representatives of registrants. The NST works to strengthen PSEPs throughout the United States via a number of initiatives.

The founding objectives of the National Stakeholder Team are to:
Establish a permanent source of federal funding for PSEP in every state and territory
Determine the potential for additional support through state and territory pesticide product registration fees, enforcement fines and more
Explore ways for stakeholders to provide unrestricted gifts, grants and endowments to support PSEP
Promote awareness of PSEP and the importance of program funding

NPIC (http://npic.orst.edu/) provides objective, science-based information about pesticides and pesticide-related topics to enable people to make informed decisions. NPIC is a cooperative agreement between Oregon State University and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (cooperative agreement #X8-83560101).

PERC’s (http://pesticideresources.org/) goal is to create pesticide safety educational resources that are useful in advancing the protection of humans, communities, and ecosystems from the risk of pesticide poisonings, illness and injury. It helps others implement activities and programs with the same educational objective(s). PERC has produced many materials associated with educating groups on the Worker Protection Standard (WPS). PERC has a 5-year cooperative agreement between the EPA’s Office of Pesticide Programs and University of California Davis Extension, in collaboration with Oregon State University to develop national educational resources for pesticide applicator certification and for the federal Worker Protection Standard.

NPSEC (http://npsec.us/) is a not for profit corporation set up as a directorship structure (as opposed to a membership organization) with bylaws that establish formal governance via a board of directors. The Board consists of industry, government organizations, and others, with the majority of seats required to be filled by PSEP coordinators. As a directorship style organization, a hired director provides NSPEC leadership.

NPSEC’s mission is to serve and support extension PSEPs in every state and U.S. territory. In contrast to AAPSE and NST, NPSEC provides infrastructure for educational development, marketing and sales for PSEPs individually and as a national system. Importantly, and unlike AAPSE, NPSEC does not offer positions on nor engage in the pesticide safety issues of the day. NPSEC carries out its mission by working with interested PSEPs, upon request, to provide infrastructure and a combination of services and initiatives to help PSEPs carry out their work:

more efficiently and cost effectively sell and distribute educational materials for their state
create, fund, produce and deliver educational resources, such as online courses and publications with services and expertise provided by NPSEC
assist with establishing collaborations and communication between interested PSEPs
generate passive gift revenue to help support PSEPs through sales of various educational products on the NPSEC Store (https://npsecstore.com/)

What is the working relationship between NPSEC and eXtension

eXtension (https://www.extension.org/) is one of the many collaborators that NPSEC works with. eXtension is also a service provider with an agreement to work with NPSEC to host online courses that NPSEC helps PSEPs develop as a service to PSEPs, or as a service to other stakeholders.

eXtension was an instrumental partner on the initial leadership team in the formation of NPSEC. During the first year following the formation of NPSEC, eXtension served as the fiduciary agent to manage NPSEC startup funds prior to NPSEC establishing formal governance, financial accounts, and becoming a legal entity.

eXtension’s mission is to increase Extension professional’s effectiveness in addressing issues of importance to the nation through fostering creativity and innovation in developing solutions and methods of work, and advancing the visible and measurable impact of their work for the public good. eXtension provides both the general public and Extension professionals with up-to-date science and evidence-based information and education, as well as opportunities to collaborate, co-learn and co-create through its virtual network of more than 15,000 users system-wide.

eXtension was the recipient of the ‘EPA pass through funds’. NPSEC is an un-funded collaborator working with eXtension and the Pesticide Safety Education Funds Management Program (PSEFMP) to facilitate, incentivize and publicize collaboration between PSEPs. Although NPSEC receives none of the funding from the grant and has no official role as part of the grant guidance, NPSEC serves in an advisory capacity to support the efforts of the grant as requested by eXtension.

Please tell me a little more about the EPA Meetings Implementation grant that was received by NPSEC.

The grant (effective August 1, 2018) was awarded to Michigan State University, not NPSEC. NPSEC is a sub awardee on the grant. It is a cooperative agreement with EPA to coordinate meetings, workshops and conferences. MSU will coordinate the meetings with partners and stakeholders involved in the implementation of the 2015 revisions to the Worker Protection Standard and the 2017 Certified Applicator regulations. The cooperative agreement is funded at $500,000 for the first year, with a total amount of up to $2,499,999 over the five years, subject to the availability of funds. The grant includes coordinating existing meetings – Pesticide Applicator Certification and Training (PACT) and Certification and Training Assessment Group (CTAG), and new meetings, primarily Collaboration Team meetings on specific topics of interest to PSEPs and other stakeholders related primarily to WPS and Certification & Training (C&T). The San Antonio meeting in August 2018 was the first meeting supported by this grant. A large portion of the grant funds will go to support participants to attend the meetings, workshops and conferences that will be developed and delivered as part of the grant.

For training programs, will NPSEC go pay per view or pay a subscription?

Any training programs facilitated by NPSEC belong to the PSEP or other content developer. How they are delivered and what revenue is generated is up to the PSEP to decide with consultation and advice from NPSEC.

How do sales from the NPSEC Store support PSEP programs?

In a variety of ways:

A percentage of state manual sales go directly back to the state PSEP (as determined by the NPSEC Board-Staff).
- NPSEC tracks all sales and issues a monthly report and check. States utilizing NPSEC report better customer service, better reporting, better inventory control, lower production costs, and higher revenue.
- PERC products and some other products coming to the store soon, include an exclusive discount if purchased directly by a PSEP.
- Additionally, all product sales are tracked state by state and a percentage of revenue is returned to the PSEP as passive revenue in the form of a gift to avoid indirect costs.
NPSEC also works with PSEPS for online course development and delivery with a variety of business models, including fronting the development costs for resource-limited PSEPs.
- All financial arrangements are negotiated by the PSEP, and a formal service agreement is developed and executed between the PSEP and NPSEC.
- The PSEP will always retain ownership of the work product.

Who are you working with, and how are you working with them? Depending on needs, this can change over time. However, primarily, working relationships are from voluntary request for support from individual state PSEP programs utilizing signed negotiated service agreements.

Currently, we are working with Michigan and Colorado for state manual sales and distribution; PERC to exclusively sell and distribute hard copies of the products they produce; Rutgers to exclusively sell and distribute their respirator guide nationally.
Idaho on a fee for service contract to develop online courses; New Hampshire to develop online courses using demonstration funds.
We are currently finalizing an agreement with the Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs (AFOP) similar to PERC, including PSEP revenue sharing (the first AFOP product we will distribute is their newly updated WPS flipchart).
An agreement to manage and host EPA-mandated online training to purchase and apply Paraquat.
NPSEC is in discussion with Maryland and Oregon for manual sales and distribution.
NPSEC has also advised the Minnesota PSEP on how to develop online courses. NPSEC is happy to share our expertise and advise any PSEP who would like to do things on their own.
NPSEC has a number of other initiatives and projects that are in discussion. NPSEC is happy to share, with any PSEP that may be interested, the service agreement template we use.

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What is the process to submit materials for public access?

Contact and discuss your ideas/products with NPSEC. NPSEC will then draft a Service Agreement (SA) and Statement of Work (SOW) for your review and approval. This spells out that you retain ownership of what you develop, even if modification by NPSEC or other PSEPS is allowed, as well as any revenue sharing that may be part of the agreement. The negotiated SA and SOW covers all other aspects of the project and is signed by you or your institution and NPSEC.

Can industry post materials on NPSEC; or does it need to be general in content?

Materials generated and utilized by NPSEC are generic, and in many cases, will go through some form of review. NPSEC will not promote specific brands or services by companies. This will become more formalized as the Collaborations Teams continue to operate, and will include a peer review process. Based on input and direction from the NPSEC Board, there may be links on the NPSEC website to certain commercial products and training materials.

Are there any limitations on the types of resources posted on NPSEC?

Not as long as they help support NPSEC’s mission, and fit the requirements above. They can include for-sale items as well as free information. The NPSEC Board of Directors currently reviews resources posted by NPSEC and is responsible for all final decisions.

What is the benefit of using NPSEC vs our own university?

This will likely vary depending upon each institution. In some cases, there may not be a benefit. If there are benefits, they may include:

lower production and distribution costs,
better service, more responsive, more efficient, more creative,
better marketing and promotion,
and potentially higher revenue returned to the PSEP.

How can you notify PSEPs and others of materials being made?

NPSEC produces a weekly e-newsletter, uses social media, does e-mail blasts to PSEPs and other stakeholders, press releases as needed, and directly contacts PSEPs to explain certain activities or benefits, like the benefit from the sale of PERC products. The NPSEC website (npsec.us) is an excellent resource for PSEPs and other stakeholders to routinely access for the latest NPSEC information and activities. If you would like to be added to our email list-serve, please contact Aaron Weibe at aaronweibe@npsec.us

How can NPSEC put entities in contact with each other to discuss what worked / what didn’t for programs that did something similar?

Much of this will be done at national Pesticide Applicator Certification and Training (PACT) and NPSEC Collaboration Team meetings. We will also publicize success stories via videos and hard copy. NPSEC is also an un-funded collaborator working with eXtension and the Pesticide Safety Education Funds Management Program (PSEFMP) funding to identify, facilitate, incentivize and publicize collaboration between PSEPs. Other ideas to do this are always welcome!

We have recently created a PSEP-only list-serve to allow PSEPs to share information or ask questions within the PSEP network. Only PSEPs get these messages. NPSEC staff does not* have access to any questions or content posted on this site. If you or someone from your PSEP needs to be added to this list-serve, please contact Aaron Weibe at aaronweibe@npsec.us. *For purposes of clarity, as PSEP Coordinator for Delaware, Kerry Richards does have access to the PSEP only network. Kerry also serves as Educational Program Developer for NPSEC.

FAQ – Frequently Asked Questions

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