Louisiana Pest Management Association names Paul K. Adams award recipient

The Louisiana Pest Management Association (LPMA) presented Jeff Hargrave, ACE, with the Paul K. Adams award during its Winter Convention.

Hargrave works in Lafayette, La., as an operations consultant for Atlanta-based Arrow Exterminators under the brand Stark Exterminators. He took on the role after he and his wife Kimi sold their pest control company, Cajun Bug Exterminating, to Arrow Exterminators in November 2024

Since 2024, he has served president at LIPCA Inc., the insurance company owned by pest management professionals. In addition, he and Kimi own JK Strategy & Consulting.

Hargrave is the 17th recipient of the Paul K. Adams Award since it was first launched in 1993. The award is named for Pest Management Professional Hall of Famer Paul K. Adams (Class of 2010), who wrote the first minimum termite treatment standards for Louisiana, the first state to develop and implement such guidelines. He also re-established the Louisiana Pest Control Association (now named the Louisiana Pest Management Association) in 1968 and served on the Louisiana Structural Pest Control Commission for 28 years. He also served as president of the National Pest Control Association, now known as the National Pest Management Association (NPMA).

In a thank you letter to LPMA members, Hargrave said, “I have always worked to provide excellence in dealing with customers, team members and everyone that I encounter. Treat everyone with respect, dazzle them with excellence and let them see your passion in what you do has served me very well in life. Having been so blessed in our industry, I strongly believe that we should pay it forward.”

Hargrave’s career in the pest control industry began in March 1997. He worked in management at Orkin for 20 years before he and Kimi opened Cajun Bug Exterminating in April 2017. Their company expanded when it purchased Ardoin’s Exterminating in October 2018 and Delcambre Exterminating in May 2020. Since its Arrow Exterminators acquisition, the company is doing business as Stark Exterminators in Louisiana.

“We were blessed as the Cajun Bug Exterminating Family of Companies had tremendous growth, and we were able to establish a highly successful brand in just 7½ years,” Hargrave said.

While serving as the LPMA president in 2013, Hargrave implemented a two-day Associate Certified Entomologist (ACE) training class and testing component, the first sponsored by the LPMA.

He became a member of the Louisiana Department of Agriculture & Forestry’s (LDAF’s) Structural Pest Control Commission Rules Committee and chairman of the Pest PAC Committee in 2015, and continues to serve in those roles. “As part of the Rules Committee, I led the charge to limit the pest control operator’s liability for retreatment to only Subterranean (Formosan) termite activity found within the first 90 days and not all other wood destroying insects,” Hargrave said.

In 2021, he rewrote the Louisiana Department of Agriculture & Forestry (LDAF)-approved baiting contract, which remains in use today.

“The one approved at the time was from 1990s and did not spell everything out correctly enough to protect both the pest control operator and the consumer,” Hargrave said. 

In addition, he represents Louisiana on the NPMA’s State Policy Affairs Representative (SPAR) Legislative Committee.

 “Our industry has rewarded us with an outstanding life for me and my family,” Hargrave said in his thank you message for receiving the award. “I’ve always valued the opportunity that our industry enables us to protect our customers’ homes and business from both pest and termites.”