The 3rd Recent Advances in Microbial Control Conference (RAMC) held November 9-12 in San Francisco was well attended and featured topics ranging from microbial detection and control on the international space station to sustainability during the keynote talk by Dow Microbial Control, to novel methods to control pathogens in food, treatment strategies for microbial control in oil and gas production; new rapid detection methods and FDA talk on novel moves toward biological control of human foodborne illness associated with commercial crop production. Comments ranged from “This is REAL microbiology” to “This meeting is like a Gordon Conference without the ski slope . . .” Dates for the 4th RAMC in fall 2016 will be announced.