The 2010 Pre-Employment Screeners' Conference happened to be one of the most informative and interesting events held by the Background Investigator and Steven Brownstein, yet.

David Cuillier, a journalism professor at the University of Arizona, spent more than an hour explaining usage of freedom of Information, how to interact with court personnel to get the results you want, and even how to save money when ordering copies or buying data.

Anyone who performs or has a staff that performs court searches needed to hear Cuillier's words of advice.

Steven Brownstein quotes, "I have done many a search and watching (Cuillier) go through his methods of asking a clerk for an answer was not only enetertaining but downright informative."

The schools of journalism throughout the USA have helped us in pre-employment screening for years by opening up the courts to our requests.

Les Rosen and Cheri Smith- Homa rallied the attendees on with their profound insights into the current status of our industry.

Not one, but two keynote speakers rocked the conference.

Joe Calloway, a world reknowned speaker, lit a fire under our ambition, bringing home the message of excellence with the topic, A Category of One.

Avish Parashar, not only entertained the attendees, but taught us how to use humour to make changes in the workplace and our attitudes.

Steven Brownstein then spoke of the importance of knowing your court researchers.

He said that many pre-employment screening companies think they are getting one result when they are actually getting someting else.

And that could and does cause problems.

Dennis Brownstein spent time explaining the mathematical values used in determining turn around time.

His low key method of teaching made learning a breeze.

The conference could not have been complete without a couple of professional hackers breaking into the hotels' wireless connection (with their approval) and hijacking a few of our E-mails.

Their presentation really opened up a bunch of eyes and afterwards they were swarmed with many questions about computer security.

Ron Brand gave an update of FCRA rules that would be, in other conferences standard practice, but at Clearwater; Brand's technique was most enlightening.

Finally, Michele Stuart, the nation's Social Networking expert, gave a clear picture of the uses of Facebook, etc. for pre-employment screening purposes.

For those of you that could not make it your timing could not have been worse.

But don't worry, there's always next year.