What a week – and it's still Tuesday! It started in Michigan with a graduate student successfully defending his M.S. degree – way to go Dave! Then on to San Diego County where Chris Greer and I met with the UC ANR personnel. We were joined by a group from eXtension, including CEO Chris Geith. I can tell you that Jim Bethke and the group in San Diego County made UC ANR look really good! From Derrick Robinson's work with youth to improve their financial literacy capacity through Money Talks, to Ramiro Lobo's overview of small farming in the county, Patti Wooten Swanson's Your Money, Your Goals program targeted at improving financial management skills of social workers so that they can help their clients, Cheryl Wilen's efforts with Healthy Garden, Healthy Home and Jim Bethke's own efforts pest management programming the eXtension group no doubt left impressed with what UCCE offers in SoCal. And that was before we all stopped in at the San Diego Zoo to meet with one of Jan Gonzales' colleagues and saw firsthand the results of shot hole borer, then met with Jennifer Pelham, Scott Parker and a couple of Master Gardeners at Founder's Square before heading to see a 4-H military program in action and learn more about the program from Sue Manglallan and Debbie McAdams. The enthusiasm of this office must be the result of the Qigong exercises lead by Margarita Ramirez-Schwarz.

I didn't know what to expect. It certainly wasn't the snow and salt truck we passed on the way from San Diego to Imperial at the end of the day. And I didn't expect Lori Renstrom to share with us the Live Well San Diego program, a collaboration of all county departments, including UCCE. In particular, the pyramid that verbalized a vision (desired state), strategic approaches to achieve the vision, areas of influence and indicators of progress was a surprise. In preparation for a retreat next week that will serve to develop action plans around some of the strategic plan goals, a few of us have been tossing around ideas about how to approach the program prioritization goal. The pyramid reminded me of a recent discussion and a concept I plan to throw out as a starting point for discussion at the retreat. I think it would be something familiar to the UCCE San Diego County.

UCCE San Diego County