Each year, the California Association of Pest Control Advisors (CAPCA) honors a member with its “PCA Advisor of the Year Award and Service to CAPCA.” The highest honor given by the association was awarded to Henry “Buck” Buckwalter, state regulatory government affairs manager for FMC, during the 2016 Conference & Agri-Expo luncheon. The 42nd annual event was held at the Disneyland Hotel in Anaheim, California and Buck received thunderous applause as he took the stage to accept the award.

FMC’s Henry “Buck” Buckwalter receives PCA Advisor of the Year Award and Service to CAPCA from former President Jeremy Briscoe.

I asked Buck how it felt to get up in front of hundreds of people and accept such an honor. “It was difficult because I never thought I’d be a recipient of this award. There’s a lot of good people who have received this award before, and to put me in with that crowd was a bit humbling. I might say very humbling,” he said.

He joined a CAPCA chapter when he moved to California and said at the time the biggest draw was that the organization calculated your CEU hours (Continuing Education Units. Buck said his next draw was the camaraderie and the exchange of information with his peers. Today he sits on the board and helps with regulatory issues.

I also asked Buck if 30 years ago he could envision the new tools and technologies available today to which he answered, “No, I could never predict some of the precision agriculture we have today or some of the genomics we have to choose from as growers today – no, I never would have thought.” However, the water issues California is seeing today, Buck said, the ag industry saw coming back in the late 70s and so water and pesticide management was used then to conserve resources just as they are now.

To learn more about Buck, listen to my interview here: [wpaudio url=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/zimmcomm/CAPCA16-fmc-buckwalter.mp3″ text=”Interview with Henry Buckwalter, FMC”]

Be sure to check out even more action by viewing the 42nd Annual CAPCA Photo Album.