On May 9, APHIS and the Cooperative Agricultural Pest Survey (CAPS) announced the winners of the 2016 CAPS Recognition Group Award. The award acknowledges the outstanding activities and achievements of members of the CAPS community in supporting the pest detection mission. The team of eight who received this year's award planned and delivered two Cerambycidae and Buprestidae Survey and Identification workshops that were held at Purdue University and the University of Massachusets in July and August 2015, respectively. Two ITP cooperators, Dr. Gino Nearns and Dr. Nathan Lord (pictured above with participants and instructors of the Massachusetts workshop; Gino is pictured front row, center; Nathan is back row, left, in a yellow shirt), were among the group of recipients, which also included 5 PPQ employees and the Massachusetts state survey coordinator. The goal of the workshops was to train survey professionals in effectively conducting surveys for non-native, wood-boring beetles in these families. Gino and Nathan contributed to course objectives for training in identifying and screening commonly intercepted beetles in traps and learning key characteristics of target taxa. The image belows captures one of the sessions Nathan taught.

Gino and Nathan have been longtime cooperators with ITP. They worked together to produce Oncid ID and Ironclad ID, two of our wood-boring beetle tools. Gino has been working on the comprehensive cerambycid tool Longicorn ID for several years, and it is due for the fourth and final update in 2016 that will add larval id support. Nathan and Gino have also been working on Buprestid ID, a tool that was started some years ago by the late expert Dr. Chuck Bellamy. Buprestid ID is also due for release in 2016.

Congratulations to all eight recipients of the 2016 CAPS Group Recognition Award:

Nathan Lord, Post-Doctoral Fellow, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT;
Gino Nearns, Collections Manager, Purdue Entomological Research Collection, West Lafayette, IN;
Scott Blackwood, PPQ Pest Survey Specialist, Des Plaines, IL;
Bobby Brown, PPQ Entomology Domestic Identifier, West Lafayette, IN;
Nichole Carrier, PPQ Pest Survey Specialist, Wallingford, CT;
Carrie Croy-Owen, PPQ Field Operations Travel Management Specialist, Raleigh, NC;
Christopher Pierce, PPQ Pest Survey Specialist, Jefferson City, MO;
Sarah Grubin, State Survey Coordinator, MA Dept. of Agricultural Resources, Amherst, MA.