Richard Strand, who was Executive Director for 18 years received life membership of the Association at the 2017 AGM in Leicestershire today.
Richard Strand has been both an employee and an active member of the BPCA Board and until recently, the Servicing Committee, where he chose to commendably step down in order to ‘make way for another member'.
On receipt of the award, Richard, who joined BPCA as Executive Director in 1988 said,
"It's a real honour for me to receive life membership from the Association I've been working on and off with since the 1970s. I can't possibly single anybody out to thank as there are so many people who have helped me along the way, so I want to thank everybody, collectively, for your ongoing support for the last 30 years."
BPCA life membership is awarded to individuals in recognition of their services to pest management.
Richard, whose company Pest Information Consultancy is a BPCA Consultant Member also said
"When I took the post of Executive Director we were based in London and had only 2 full time members of staff. Through progressive change, supported by the membership, we were able to build support for the Association. On reflection, many of the new things we introduced are still an integral part of the membership today, such as the Probationary Scheme, PROMPT, merging of BPCA/RSPH Level 2, and PPC."
"I left the organisation as Executive Director with a staff team and turnover 5 times the size as when I started, but I was fortunate to be supported by some excellent members of staff, some of whom are still within the BPCA community today. I have really enjoyed working with and for the organisation and it is great to see the Association go from strength to strength."
Richard started his career in Pest Control in 1973 with the then British Rail Pest Control Unit in Manchester, as a raw Zoology graduate specialising in entomology. He went on to run the London based Southern Pest Control Unit from 1978 to 1981 and then, from 1985 to 1988 put all of British Rail's pest control work out to contract.
He was subsequently the Executive Director of BPCA for 18 years, and is a past President of the Confederation of European Pest Management Associations (CEPA); one of his major successes was lobbying hard to bring Germany into CEPA, and helping develop the Confederation into a stronger body. More recently Richard was also a Board member of BPCA.
As well as training and examination work for both the Royal Society of Public Health and LANTRA Awards, Richard has also provided secretarial services for the Irish Pest Control Association (IPCA). As part of his ongoing consultant work, Richard also writes articles for the trade and national press, building on the success of his former column in the Sunday Times where he answered readers' questions on pest control.