OUR HISTORY

My father had dabbled in a few jobs post Air Force and ended up liking the termite and pest control industry. He was living in Clearwater, Fl at the time and had just purchased a small Termite & Pest control company. So in the summer of 1979, he allowed me to make some money doing termite jobs. The following year I went back down, driver's license in hand. So now I could go on my own doing pest control work, driving a little 77 Pinto (standard). It was a good summer. So that's where and how I got into this industry. I went on to work in the Washington DC area for Acme Pest Control in Silver Springs before joining the military and getting my Dream duty Station in San Diego ( Born in California and in the '70s, that was where I wanted to be) I did two years and was Honorably Discharged (minor neck injury, Tijuana) and went to work for Terminix in San Diego in 1985 where I started on a Fumigation Crew tarping homes for Drywood Termites I earned my way up to a pest control route and won numerous awards with Terminix and got my Calf applicators license. In the summer of 1986, I took a job with Terminix in Jacksonville, Fl (to get closer to family). Times were tough, and Terminix in Jacksonville was even more challenging. There was not a route job waiting for me but a sales job.

I ended up working a midnight shift stocking shelves at the local Winn Dixie to help support my small family. My dad, having moved to Columbus, GA, invited us to move up there to get a new start, so at the beginning of 1987 we moved in with my dad and stepmother. By then, my dad had sold the termite and pest control business and had bought into Yellow cab of Columbus near Fort Benning, GA. I got a job with Orkin exterminating and drove part-time on the weekends to make extra money. We met our goal and moved out of their home within four months and rented a place in Phenix City Alb. Within six months of that, my then-wife wanted to rejoin the military and got orders to Guam. So we packed up the family and moved to Guam at the beginning of 1988.

I immediately found employment with the only pest control company listed in Guam. What a great experience that was; they had a terrible Formosan termite problem (not to mention tree snakes) on Guam, so by the time Formosan Termites showed up in Pensacola in the late 90's I was ahead of the curve. I worked for him for about ten months before getting a letter offering me a pest control job on the Navy base working Federal Civil Service for PWC as a WG-7/9 ... No Brainer... jumped on that. Great experience and the best part is while I was there, they had 12 other guys from our base and active duty AF that were going to get DOD certified and brought in personnel to provide the 45-day training to prepare for the DOD Termite/Pest Control exam. They added me to the list, and I got DOD Certification. We stayed in Guam for three years in total. The tour was two years, but because she did three years, she had her choice of Duty Stations. We picked Pensacola because of its huge PWC. Just because I was certified did not land me a job, and spouse preference only applies if there is an opening. I, of course, applied but did not get an offer and had to get back to work, so I took a job with Sears Termite & Pest Control in the late spring of 1991. In June 1991, I received an offer for a pest control position at PWC on Main Side Pensacola ( summer hire only). I jumped on it. It turned into a conditional career appointment, and I stayed employed out there until July of 2002, at which time we lost our jobs to contracting. I had the option to remain in the Civil Service, but my kids were in high school, and I was unwilling to move. In the State of Florida is extremely difficult to get a pest control license. At that time, they did not even recognize DOD, so I was not even considered eligible to take the State exam. I would be remiss if I did not give a TON of credit to my friend, George Moore, he was the local Union President, and he lobbied the State legislator to have a paragraph added to the law to allow us to take the State exam (it's still there). So we all went down and took the exam, and we all failed. That test was crazy... but we signed up again and passed it after having gone to work for Household Termite & Pest Control in Foley, Alabama, to partner up and start a company in Florida, which we did in Sept of 2003.