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Alabama Turfgrass Association – ATA State of the Association with President Joe Collins and Vice President Ben Anderson
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ATA Turf Times – Julie Holt, Content Director, TheTurfZone.com
The Turf Zone: Welcome to The Turf Zone. In this episode of Alabama Turfgrass, I’m joined by our ATA President Joe Collins, and Vice President Ben Anderson. Joe is Landscape and Sports Turf Manager at Samford University and Ben is the Golf Course Superintendent at Arrowhead Country Club. Ben and Joe, thank you so much for joining me.
Joe Collins: Thank you, Julie.
Ben Anderson: Thanks for having us.
TTZ: In this episode we’re talking State of the Association, so this is just an update from Ben and Joe about ATA coming out of 2020 and going into 2021, what we can look forward to and what we can expect. So we’re going to start at the beginning. Joe, will you tell me about – how was Alabama Turfgrass Association formed and a little bit about its membership?
JC: Sure. The ATA was formed 56 years ago to get together people like Ben and I and all our peers around the state to educate and connect and learn more about turf. We have currently 650 members representing all segments of the turfgrass industry – we’ve got lawn care specialists, sports turf managers, golf course superintendents, landscape contractors, landscape maintenance professionals, sod producers, industry suppliers and vendors, professors, researchers, extension agents and students. We cover just about everybody who has anything to do with turfgrass in the state.
TTZ: So that’s a wide range of different turf professionals and I know that, you mentioned, that education is a really big focus. How does ATA accomplish that education mission for its members?
JC: Last year we had the issue with COVID, we had to restrict all of our meetings based on the regulations that the state put in. We could not get together face-to-face as we normally would have. Normally we’d have six road show seminars in conjunction with Auburn University and their turfgrass unit, then every other year we have a lawn and landscape workshop, then the alternate year we have a sports turf field day where people who have specific connections to those types of fields can get together with their peers and learn in a close-in setting with the hands-on projects. We also support the Auburn University Turfgrass Field Day Research unit, and we also have the poa annua golf tournament that we sponsor as a form of raising money and to have a little fun with the members. We also are sponsors of the Deep South Turf Expo every fall, which we have a regional meeting with people from the states that surround us – Mississippi, Louisiana and ourselves – and we get together and have a good time and learn a lot about turf and just get together with our friends and have a little fellowship together around turf. And also provide some education with our membership and their membership and everybody get their CEU credit points and stay certified.
TTZ: We know that with over 650 members like you mentioned earlier, and these events that are typically annual events, that you didn’t get to do those in 2020 because of COVID – how has ATA been functioning financially without those events?
JC: Good question. We have luckily had good board members over the past several years that have really helped us to bank a number of dollars in case of happenings like this COVID issue. We raise money on these events to sponsor the association and to sponsor the research but our vendors and sponsors have just been outstanding, they’ve stayed with us. We can’t thank them enough for their participation with the ATA and how important they are to us and our survival. Like I said, we’ve had memberships and boards past that have helped us save a little money for these rainy days and right now we’re in pretty good shape, so we’re in good shape going into this year, we’re hoping for some meetings coming back on that would allow us to once again, fill up the coffers and help us maintain our education mission. That’s the goal and we’re actually in pretty good business.
TTZ: I’m going to pause here, because I’m so glad you mentioned those sponsors, they have really been loyal to the association and you guys have had fantastic sponsors. I’m going to give those guys a shout-out. Your 2021 sponsors – Gold sponsors are Bayer Environmental Science, Beard Equipment Co., Greenville Turf & Tractor, Harrell’s Inc, Jerry Pate Turf & Irrigation, Simplot. Silver Sponsors are BWI Companies, Corteva Agriscience, Ewing, Nufarm, SiteOne Landscape Supply, Syngenta. Bronze Sponsors are Agromax, BASF, GreenPoint Pro, PBI Gordon, Southern States Turf, ShurLine Turf, Walker Wright Mowers. Definitely, members, send some love to those companies who have kept this association functioning, and keeping your heads above water in addition to those things that Joe mentioned.
Ben, let me turn to you now. What else does ATA do to further its education mission?
BA: Well, the ATA offers two scholarships each year and that go to either children or grandchildren of active members and we feel that education is very important to the next generation and so the application, we try to make that as simple as possible. The hardest part is on our end, sometimes we get so many applicants that it’s really hard to narrow that down.
TTZ: Ben, I know another role that you have as Vice President is you’re involved with Government Affairs for ATA. Can you give us an update on what’s going on in that segment?
BA: I am, and that’s not necessarily a typical role as a Vice President, I was just also the Grassroots Ambassador for the GCSAA, so that kind of rolled in since I’m already an active part on that side of things. I’m constantly getting updated from the GCSAA of issues we have going on. At this moment for Alabama, the ATA is involved with other green industry associates to help the Alabama Agriculture and Industries Department formulate the requirements and fees for a new pesticide category. It’s being mandated by the EPA, but the new pesticide category is currently known as (this is a loose term, and we’re hoping to get it renamed) it’s ‘non-certified applicator.’ It’s confusing, a little bit to us. So we’ve already provided the Ag Department with a PowerPoint showing our thoughts, and Joe Collins, our president, he presented the ATA stance on the new license category during a Zoom meeting. That Zoom meeting had of Ag Department staff, ALFA staff, ACES staff from Auburn, and four other associations. So hopefully they’re going to take all the information that we all provided and the opinions of how this new license should look, and hopefully they’re going to take all into consideration and make it as easy for the industry in Alabama as possible.
TTZ: I’m going to go back a little bit. Joe, you mentioned the Deep South Turf Expo, and I know you’re both on the committee. Is there any more insight you can give us for the plans and status of the 2021 Expo?
JC: A group of associations such as the ATA, Mississippi Turfgrass Association, ALGCSA, GCGCSA, and the LMGCSA, all those groups get together, they used to be the Southern Turf Association. We don’t do that meeting anymore, so now we do the Deep South Turf Expo, which gets everybody together doing their own thing. This year’s Expo will be in Biloxi, November 1-4. We’re looking for a big crowd this year. Hopefully we’ll have a big crowd if the restrictions, COVID-wise relax a little bit. I’m sure we’re going to expect a big turnout for people who were pent up in their offices or golf courses or sports turf offices over this past year. The advantage of having the regional turfgrass conference in the Deep South Turf Expo is that we can get educators from the universities within those states and they provide outstanding research updates and educational opportunities that affect every single person that’s in this organization. These topics are specifically designed to help people like me and Ben do our jobs better. For me personally, I can’t think of anything that’s more worth it than to go down and listen to these seminars and learn something. You’re going to learn something every time. And not to mention the fact that I get to reunite with all my friends within the industry, and Ben can tell you all about, there’s a lot of people we don’t get to see through the year that we meet up with again at the Deep South Turf Expo. It’s a great place to go, Biloxi’s been great host for us. This thing is working out great. I think had we not had a pause for COVID, we’d have had record numbers every year. It’s just becoming bigger and bigger. I’m excited for us to get back to it this November. I hope we can get this worked out and people can make plans to show up this year, it’s going to be a great event.
TTZ: I know everybody’s itching to get out and have some face time instead of staring at each other’s faces in these Zoom squares that we’re doing right now. Ben, tell me, members are listening to this podcast, and that’s just one of the ways you guys are communicating with the membership, tell the members other ways that they can stay on top of everything that’s going on with ATA?
BA: I would definitely say our biggest effort to communicate would be the ATA Turf Times magazine. It’s published by Leading Edge quarterly. The Turf Times began back in 2008, and I’ll tell you, it’s just gotten better and better since in my opinion. We’re definitely fortunate to have an editorial committee, because that is not a strong suit of mine, so big shout out to Dr. David Han, Dr. Jim Jacobi, and James Horton. They provided valuable insight into topics that interest our membership. Other than that, we do have e-newsletters published monthly, and ATA has a Facebook and Twitter, we also have a website, that’s alturfgrass.org. We definitely are indebted to Leading Edge for providing other communication platforms. TheTurfZone podcast, which is what we’re on now, so we definitely are trying to expand our social media reach. More in a direct manner, of course, we’re constantly hosting events and trying to network in person. It’s a good time to get with others, as Joe said about the Deep South. I can go months, even a year at a time without seeing someone right here in my town, but when we go to these meetings, we connect and can talk about things. The sports field day in Auburn, that’s another one where you just run into people you haven’t seen in forever, just word of mouth, firsthand experiences with those too. Also, connecting with vendors and they’re always telling you about the next best thing. All around, it’s just a community. We try to keep it, we try to be as reachable as possible as a board of directors, we’re available through email, we have a directory that’s sent out to all the members each year. We’re listed in that and we encourage anybody that has opinions on any way we could improve the association or just want to communicate with us to reach out.
TTZ: Joe, let’s wrap up with this. We’ve mentioned our sponsors, but there are other industry partnerships with vendors, Auburn University and the Extension System. Can you tell us a little more about how ATA works in cooperation with those organizations to support turfgrass professionals across the state?
JC: Certainly. The ATA has long been associated with Auburn University Department of Turfgrass Management and the cooperative extension service. We actually have members as our educational advisors. Dr. Han and Dr. Jacobi consult with us and help us get our educational listings and connect us with the researchers down at Auburn so that we can present the most up to date technical knowledge that’s out there for our members and in adjacent states in the deep south. The ATA also has sponsored and supported the Alabama Turfgrass Research Foundation for many years and our contributions have directly attributed some funding to specific studies of Dr. Beth Guertal at Auburn and Dr. Scott McElroy at Auburn have performed. Dr. Guertal performed exploring phosphite fertilizer for turfgrass, fungicidal fertilizer project that the ATA directly funded. And Dr. McElroy had his development of solutions for goosegrass herbicide resistance and dwarfism in golf course putting greens. The ATA was a fundamental base of that funding for those specific topics of research. And those are just the tip of the iceberg for what we contribute and what we can do to enhance our own industry. Our connection with Auburn and the other university partners are critical for our educational base and we can’t thank them enough. And our sponsors are awesome and we could not do the ATA properly without there assistance. We continue to look forward to great association with our sponsors for years to come. We can’t do it without them.
TTZ: You guys definitely have a great network of partnerships and your members are luck y to have such great support from you guys as volunteer board members, Melanie Bonds, your executive director, your editorial committee and all the parts and pieces that come together to make ATA work. Joe, Ben thank you so much again, for joining us today. Do you guys have any closing thoughts as we finish up this episode?
BA: I think one thing we definitely didn’t mention enough is Melanie Bonds’ involvement and how she’s the backbone, the glue of the ATA. She reaches out to the vendors and plans the venues of the meetings, gets the board of directors together. I don’t think she gets enough credit through the association for everything she does for us.
JC: I completely agree, Ben. Melanie is who keeps us going. She is the person who connects us with all these different topics, keeps us on task, makes sure we have deadlines. She’s been a super help for me as president. This president stuff is blowing me away, but she’s helping me get through it. I can’t thank her enough.
TTZ: I agree—Melanie is fantastic. For those of you listening, if you happen to see Melanie in person, give her an elbow bump. Is that what we’re doing these days? Or an air high-five? Special thanks to Melanie and everybody who works so hard to keep ATA the excellent organization it is.
Check out our show notes for links to stay up to date with ATA, don’t miss an episode of Alabama Turfgrass, subscribe on Spotify, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also visit us at TheTurfZone.com.
Alabama Turfgrass Association
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