Honoring the memories of lost loved ones and saluting the industry’s growing army of cancer survivors, pest management professionals (PMPs) are united in their commitment to raise awareness and funds to fight cancer.
The accompanying photographs and extended captions aren’t meant to be an all-encompassing report about the industry’s related efforts; they’re simply intended to serve as a small sampling of a long-standing and expanding initiative we call “PMPs for a Cure.”
All images are courtesy of the featured pest management companies and associations.
ABC Pest Control
A former fireman for 15 years, Nick Libretto, owner of ABC Pest Control in Cape Coral, Fla., purchased a fire truck Sept. 11, 2011, to use as an attraction at events raising awareness and funds to fight cancer. Libretto launched “Firefighters Fighting Cancer” after losing five loved ones, colleagues and acquaintances to cancer during an 18-month span. “Next summer, I want to drive the fire truck from Florida to Memphis, and visit all of the hospitals in-between that are helping kids fight cancer,” Libretto says.
Admiral Pest Control
Bellflower, Calif.-based Admiral Pest Control has raised more than $165,000 since joining the American Cancer Society’s (ACS’s) annual Relay For Life in Bellflower in 2007. Leading the charge at Admiral is Vice President Jeff Jones, recent winner of the ACS’s Statewide Patient Courage Award. Admiral generated about $5,000 of the $35,000 it raised this year for ACS by selling tickets to a Los Angeles Dodgers-San Francisco Giants baseball game on May 9, 2014. Jones threw out the first pitch before that game, which was one year to the day his right shoulder and arm were amputated because of cancer. Featured on this month’s cover, Jones is the lead-off hitter for our cancer survivor stories beginning on page 18.
Advanced Services
Augusta, Ga.-based Advanced Services has raised more than $115,000 — at least half of which its customers contributed — for The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS) during the past 10 years. Jeff Annis, president and CEO of Advanced, has served as corporate chairman of LLS’s Light the Night annual walk in Augusta and as chairman of Augusta’s Man & Woman of the Year (M&WY) campaign 2012-2014. Launched in 2012, M&WY calls on five men and five women to compete to see who can raise the most money for LLS. In 2012, Annis’ son Justin, Advanced’s sales and marketing manager, raised $13,500 for the cause. Just three years after it was launched, the fundraising competition has netted more than $600,000 for LLS. “We try to put the ‘fun’ in fundraising with the M&WY competition and events such as ‘Bald for a Cause’ and ‘No Shave to Save,’ where our clean-cut employees can get their gruff on for one month if they donate $30 a week to LLS to help save lives.”
Allgood Pest Solutions
During the past two years, Dublin, Ga.-based Allgood Pest Solutions has raised more than $31,000 to fight cancer. Additionally, the company converts its Pestimonial Booth — a traveling trailer outfitted with a mobile studio to videotape people’s pest stories — to capture cancer survivor stories and memories of loved ones lost to the disease at ACS’s Relay For Life fundraising events. Check out the “Allgood Crushes Cancer” channel on YouTube, featuring more than 100 videos.
Alliance Pest Services
After losing their dear friend, Valerie O’Rourke Foley, to ovarian cancer, Mariclaire Scott of Alliance Pest Services in Tinton Falls, N.J., and two of her friends asked Kaleidoscope of Hope (KOH) if they could start a third annual KOH walk to raise awareness and funds to fight ovarian cancer. During the past eight years, the new KOH walk in Avon-by-the-Sea has raised more than $800,000. About 80 percent of ovarian cancer cases aren’t diagnosed early enough for aggressive surgery and chemotherapy to stop the disease. So KOH, among other initiatives, helps fund research at the Penn Vet Working Dog Center, where canines are being trained to sniff out, and help snuff out, ovarian cancer early on. K-9 teams aren’t just for detecting termites and bed bugs — and drugs!
Arizona Pest Control
A few months ago, a friend who lost his wife to cancer asked Bruce Tennenbaum to shave his head to raise funds for St. Baldrick’s Foundation, which funds promising research for cures for the most-common childhood cancers. Tennenbaum, president and owner of Tucson-based Arizona Pest Control, went all in, clipping his mop top and iconic walrus feature, for the cause. The above photo depicts stage 1: a reverse mohawk. Stage 2: Replacing “Bozo the Clown” with “The Bald Walrus.” Stage 3: All head and facial hair removed, and Tennenbaum is $500 lighter thanks to his donation to St. Baldrick’s.
Dodson Pest Control
At Lynchburg, Va.-based Dodson Pest Control for every dollar an employee donates to ACS’s Relay For Life, Dodson donates 50 cents. Dodson and its employees have raised more than $100,000 for ACS since Vicki Snyder — a 35-year employee and former administrative assistant to President and CEO Bert Dodson Jr. — lost her battle with cancer in October 2004. “Hopefully, one day we won’t have to have these fundraisers because we’ll have wiped out cancer,” says Al Augustine, corporate advertising manager for Dodson.
Bayer and Serfco Termite and Pest Control
Bayer’s Maxforce on a Mission continues to grow in its second year of community outreach. Bayer teamed with Bentonville, Ark.-based Serfco Termite and Pest Control to donate an extensive fly-control treatment spanning 10 acres in rural Northwest Arkansas. The tag team treated the site of the annual fundraiser for the Cancer Challenge, a nonprofit that has given back more than $9 million to the community in related direct-patient services (early-detection screening, treatment, clinical trials, bereavement services, etc.). The annual fundraiser is located near poultry production facilities and faces tremendous fly pressure. Serfco treated around ornamental rocks, fences, railings, dumpsters and large tents using Bayer’s Maxforce fly spot bait and Maxforce granular fly bait, in addition to Bayer’s Suspend PolyZone for perimeter spraying. Pictured above are Serfco’s Jeff Serfgrass (left), executive vice president, and David Serfgrass, service technician.
Arrow Exterminators
Emily Thomas Kendrick, president and CEO of Atlanta-based Arrow Exterminators, experienced the exceptional team of doctors and nurses at the Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University as her husband, Hugh, made the journey from stage 4 throat-cancer patient to cancer survivor. As a result, Arrow Exterminators has become involved with Winship and started the Arrow Head and Neck Cancer Research Fund through a substantial contribution. Arrow Exterminators also supports other organizations and fundraising events in the fight against cancer, such as the Rally Foundation, Winship Gala, Dana G. Smith Foundation and the Winship 5K. Additionally, Kendrick serves on Winship’s advisory board.
Georgia Pest Control Association
During the past 10 years, members of the Georgia Pest Control Association (GPCA) have raised more than $1 million collectively for The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS) . Thanks to research and access to better treatments, survival rates for many blood cancers have doubled to quadrupled, depending on the disease, since 1960, according to LLS.
Batzner Pest Management
New Berlin, Wis.-based Batzner Pest Management has raised about $10,000 for the ACS’s Relay For Life at Marquette University since 2007. This year, Batzner also asked student teams to submit stories explaining how cancer has touched them. Batzner donated $2,000 on one team’s behalf and provided the students food and drink during the event.
Havasu Pest Control
For the past five years, Havasu Pest Control in Lake Havasu, Ariz., has participated in “Sleepless in Havasu for a Cure,” a 24-hour sleepless-a-thon designed to fund low-cost ($10) mammograms. Held annually at the Michael Alan Furnishings store in Lake Havasu, teams decorate beds to raise awareness and funds. The event has raised more than $107,000 during the past five years. “A few Bosom Buddies — breast cancer survivors — share their inspiring stories every year. It gets pretty emotional,” says Michele Webb, CEO of Havasu Pest Control.
Univar
Karl Kisner, Univar’s vice president of marketing – Environmental Sciences & Agriculture, and his spouse have donated more than $15,000 since 2007 to The Ohio State University’s (OSU’s) Greyhound Health and Wellness Program (GHWP). Among other initiatives, GHWP helps Greyhounds battle osteosarcomas (bone cancers). Osteosarcomas account for 22 percent of deaths in the breed, according to GHWP. Retired Greyhound racers, which are susceptible to bone cancers, can receive free chemotherapy through GHWP. Pictured from left to right are the Kisner household’s three rescued Greyhound racers: Barley (age 3), Toby (10) and Mona (4).
Larue Pest Management
Lehigh Acres, Fla.-based Larue Pest Management has donated thousands of dollars to the ACS, some of which was tied to each new client Larue has landed. “It’s extremely important for all of us to stay involved in the community and give back in a charitable fashion,” says Larue President Keith Ruebeling.
Massey Services
Orlando-based Massey Services believes everyone has been affected by cancer in some way, including Massey’s own family. That’s why giving back to organizations that support the ongoing research to find a cure is critical to Massey Services. Over the past few years, Massey Services has contributed to several cancer organizations, which include the American Cancer Society (ACS), Florida Hospital Cancer Institute, M.D. Anderson Cancer Center and Kids Beating Cancer, just to name a few.
Nisus Corp.
Kevin Kirkland (pictured above on the left), president of Nisus Corp., lost his mother to breast cancer when he was 17 and his father to prostate cancer four years later. Because prostate cancer education and awareness lagged, Kirkland launched Eddie Check in 2004. Eddie Check is an annual event named after his father that adds free prostate-specific antigen (PSA) screening for prostate cancer to blood drives in East Tennessee. Eddie Check has grown from 50 free PSA tests (and almost a similar number of blood donations) to more than 1,100 PSA tests provided Sept. 18-19, 2014, at 10 different locations in eight counties. This year, Rockford, Tenn.-based Nisus urged each Eddie Check participant to “Ask 5” family members, friends or colleagues if they’ve had PSA tests or prostate exams recently. “There wasn’t a PSA blood test in the ’70s, when Dad developed prostate cancer,” Kirkland says. “If caught early, prostate cancer has nearly a 100-percent, five-year survival rate. Jim Gorman (pictured above on the right), our vice president of marketing, is a living testament to this fact (read Gorman’s cancer survivor story here). Each year, many others come back to our Eddie Check sites and say, ‘Eddie Check saved my life. I’m a prostate cancer survivor today.’”
NPMA Professional Women in Pest Management
The National Pest Management Association’s (NPMA’s) Professional Women in Pest Management (PWIPM) is holding its fifth annual “5K Fun Run/Walk for Breast Cancer Awareness” at PestWorld in Orlando the morning of Oct. 24. The event, which raises more than $10,000 annually for the cause, has grown from 50 participants in 2010 to more than 125 runners and walkers this year.
South Carolina Pest Control Association
Members of the South Carolina Pest Control Association (SCPCA) have raised hundreds of thousands of dollars during the past 15-plus years for Camp Kemo, Camp Courage and Camp Happy Days, three camps in the state that aim to create unforgettable recreational and therapeutic experiences for children and teenagers with cancer.
Spencer Pest Services
Less than one year after handing over the helm of Spencer Pest Services to his daughter, Sheri, company founder Bill Spencer was diagnosed with sarcoma cancer and given two weeks to live. He paid no attention to his doctors. He lived 5.5 years beyond that prognosis. In his honor, Sheri, COO of Spencer Pest Services, has launched “Pest Control for a Cure,” a program through which the company contributes $50 to one of several cancer research or support organizations each time the Roswell, Ga.-based firm lands a new customer. Spencer and company also participate in ACS’s Relay For Life and LLS’s Light the Night fundraising events.
Universal Pest & Termite
Virginia Beach, Va.-based Universal Pest & Termite donates proceeds from every home inspection and real-estate termite report it completes to the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation of Tidewater, Va. On its website, Universal also asks visitors to join the fight against breast cancer and donate to the cause.
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