2014 Highlights: UC IPM Annual Report

Mary Louise Flint Retires

Dr. Mary Louise Flint, UC IPM’s associate director for urban and community IPM and extension specialist in the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, retired on June 27, 2014. As UC IPM’s first hired employee when it began in 1980, Flint’s passion and vision has influenced almost every aspect of the Statewide IPM Program.

As the director for the IPM Education and Publications group, she first established the IPM manuals series to show growers and pest control advisers how to implement IPM in the field. Eventually growing to include 15 titles, these books brought international recognition to UC IPM and became best sellers with well over 100,000 sold to date.

In her many collaborative efforts with others, Flint oversaw the development of UC IPM’s Pest Management Guidelines, helped upgrade pest management professional standards by establishing the Pesticide Compendium series for pesticide applicators, developed the Pest Note publication series for home, garden and landscape users and authored IPM in Practice, a book widely used as a textbook for many classes and for those pursuing pest control adviser licenses. She is also the author of Pests of the Garden and Small Farm-- the go-to resource for urban audiences seeking environmentally-sound ways to manage pests.

In 2007, Flint was appointed Associate Director for Urban and Community IPM and began building UC’s efforts and collaborations in this area. She has built exemplary training programs for UC Master Gardeners, schools, retail garden center employees, and maintenance gardeners. Her innovative ideas and collaborative spirit have led to such products as the IPM touch-screen kiosk, online and hands-on training modules, pest identification tools, DVD programs, and videos.

In her career, Flint published over 100 peer-reviewed publications and her active research program included adoption of IPM practices, effectiveness of biological control and low toxicity pesticides in the landscape, as well as major projects on two invasive pests: the goldspotted oak borer and the walnut twig beetle/thousand cankers disease complex.