An integrated pest management program for Rice-Eccles Stadium — designed by a Board Certified Entomologist.

Falcon's recommendation, if entomological research were the only consideration, would be a uniform 14-day inspection-and-replacement cadence across every monitoring device at Rice-Eccles, year-round, with documented escalation to 7-day cadence during the 48 hours preceding each home football game and any major event drawing five thousand or more attendees. The science supports it. The Norway rat reproductive cycle — 21- to 23-day gestation, typically six to twelve pups per litter (Timm 1994; ICWDM), sexual maturity reached at approximately three months — means a new litter can be produced between inspections on a 30-day interval, and dramatically shorter inspection windows than the quarterly intervals seen in lower-tier commercial bids are warranted under sustained access. EPA-approved FIFRA labels for the rodenticide products proposed for use at the stadium direct users to "replace contaminated or spoiled bait immediately" (e.g., Contrac All-Weather Blox label, EPA Reg. No. 12455-79). Under Utah summer climate exposure, lipid oxidation rates in oil-formulated baits approximately double with each 10°C (~18°F) temperature increment (the Q10 rule), and rancidity is a documented cause of palatability loss in non-weatherized formulations — a risk elevated enough to warrant service intervals that allow inspection of bait condition between exposures. A 14-day cadence detects population establishment before reproductive maturity is reached rather than after it, builds a margin against bait degradation, and halves the trend-data interval available to the Board Certified Entomologist of record — doubling the resolution at which emerging activity can be identified at specific stations or zones.

Stadium-class environments warrant this cadence specifically because they combine four conditions that elevate rodent risk well above an ordinary commercial structure. First, an arid Wasatch foothill climate that concentrates rodent activity at the irrigated landscape edge. Second, a wildland interface that delivers deer mice, voles, and ground squirrels into the periphery on a year-round basis. Third, predictable food-waste pulses on event days, when a single home football game can introduce more concentrated organic waste into the facility envelope than a typical commercial account sees in a full quarter. Fourth, a hardened concrete and post-tensioned steel structure with extensive mechanical chases and structural voids that create harborage opportunities inaccessible to spot inspection. Each of these conditions, on its own, would justify above-baseline service cadence. Together, they require it.

Procurement reality, however, does not always permit the science-pure recommendation to be implemented as designed. The Athletics Department operates inside real budgetary constraints, and a uniform 14-day cadence applied to every zone — including lower-traffic areas like exterior perimeter stations and suite-level pantries — would substantially increase program cost without proportionally improving pest management outcomes. The Board Certified Entomologist signing this proposal also brings a career as Vice President of Operations for a national commercial pest control company — direct executive accountability for finding the balance between what the science demands and what the business permits. That dual perspective shaped the program presented here.

Falcon's program for Rice-Eccles applies the 14-day cadence where the research most clearly demands it: the highest-pressure, highest-consequence zones. The Field Level Kitchen, the Mezzanine Loading Dock, the Ken Garff University Club, and the Field & Locker Rooms all run on bi-weekly baseline cadence year-round, with weekly cadence during the September–November football pulse for the food-handling zones. The exterior perimeter, suite-level pantries, concourse concession back-of-house, and rooftop concession areas — zones with measurably lower baseline rodent and pest pressure during off-season operations — operate on a monthly cadence that escalates to bi-weekly or weekly during the football pulse, when use intensifies. This is not a uniform program. It is a calibrated program. Higher cadence is concentrated in the zones where pest pressure, food-handling risk, and event-day exposure are highest. Lower cadence applies to zones where the cost of additional visits would not produce a defensible return in pest management outcomes.

The result is a program that bridges both worlds. The science is honored where the science most clearly applies. The business reality is respected where additional cadence would be cost without commensurate pest management value.

The cadence calibration is the program's economic engineering. It is what allows BCE-grade rigor to fit inside a defensible institutional budget rather than requiring a budget that no procurement specialist would reasonably approve. A program that cannot be funded is not a program; it is a position paper. The proposal in front of you is a program.

If the proposal as presented does not fit the budget the Athletics Department has available, the right next step is not to put this work out for competitive bid against vendors who lack the credential to engineer scope responsibly. The right next step is a conversation. Tell me the budget. Tell me the priorities. As a Board Certified Entomologist with a parallel career in commercial pest management operations leadership, I can identify which components of this program are essential to pest management outcomes and which are optimization layers, then construct the right program for that budget while preserving its entomological integrity. The cadence calibration shown here is one example of that work. The same reasoning applies at any budget level the University can support. What changes is the scope. What does not change is the discipline of designing scope around evidence rather than around price pressure alone.

Every cadence decision in this proposal is documented, defensible against the authorities cited below, and signed by a Board Certified Entomologist who is personally accountable for the program's entomological integrity and for its operational sustainability inside the Athletics Department's budget.