My time at the California Strawberry Commission

I feel so proud of my accomplishments with the Sprayer Equipment Calibration Training Program that I help initiate with Mark Edsall and Daniel Olivier at CSC. I miss working on this successful and super fun project.

See:

http://www.calstrawberry.com/en-us/Pest-Management/Sprayer-Calibration

And for our manual:
http://www.calstrawberry.com/Portals/2/Documents/Un%20Gu%C3%ADa%20de%20Calibrar%20su%20Esprayador.pdf?ver=2018-01-23-194919-087


I had to leave the commission to grow in my career, but I will never forgot how much I enjoyed our trainings:

They still have a photo of me in the front row :)

http://www.calstrawberry.com/en-us/Workforce-Development

It is so wonderful to learn about how a project continues to grow after you leave. I am happy I got to reconnected with my past coworkers, and hear how things are continuing. They are making videos! These are super helpful for workers who cannot read. Plus, don't we all rather see a training video then read a manual?

See:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIrIT7OWWvQ&feature=share

I also got recognized and thanked for my help with a trial with UC Davis! Thank you

https://www.farms.com/news/evaluating-pesticide-spray-coverage-patterns-for-improved-pest-control-efficacy-136650.aspx

Core values and beliefs

Through all the jobs I have had, I realized that the reasons why I loved the ones I did was because of they allowed me to promote confidence in marginalized populations, whether in Paraguay, Mexico or California. I loved providing support and inspiring people to have their own self determination to thrive in a world economy in a sustainable way. Peace Corps taught me how to break down to my vulnerable self to be able to find what makes us all human. Giving human dignity in those who thought because of my whiteness or education or money or privilege or county that I was for some reason better, and allowing them to see we are all similar. We all have families, and love and want to feel good about the jobs we are doing, and meaning. Whether it be to want a better future for our children or for the world in general. Most of the small farmers I worked with, were eco friendly in their traditional way of life, much so than us in the USA, or corporations. By allowing them to continue living and sustaining their way of living by giving them access to the global markets was so key to finding my inspiration and motivation in a position.

In the Strawberry Commission I found such joy and pride in our Sprayer Calibration Program. Developing and implementing it was tiresome and so stressful at times, but I found my motivation when I realized why I cared so much. It was not about the rigs themselves but about the operators and supervisors and their desire to learn and do their jobs better. It was their own motivation to feel pride in their jobs, and feel respected. It was also to teach them how to be safe, informed and to take proactive measures to protect themselves. They would use less pesticide and less water if they sprayed correctly. It also motivated my environmental beliefs.

Too often are populations such as field workers are overlooked. Some believing because of their lack of education money or english that they are less able to understand our training. I saw the exact opposite. Every spray operator and supervisor was interested in what I taught, in how our researchers made their rig better. They knew their rig better than anyone and wanted to learn. They had that self determination to be proactive in doing their jobs better.  As immigrants I felt many were so motivated to give a better life for their children. They wanted to connect with me because I saw what was relevant to them and developed materials appropriate to their audience.

My motivation comes from a desire to serve immigrant communities in the US.