bkenosha magazine

Brent T. Towle (pronounced like toll) has been ridding the world of pests since he was ten. “That’s my story and I’m sticking to it,” he said in a recent interview. He is also not afraid to describe his feelings for his work as a passion.

“I’ve always had a passion for the natural sciences. If you go to my office you would see bug pictures all over the place. I’m a member of the Entomological Society of America. I have, at my finger tips, thousands of pictures of different insects. If you want to get a picture of a tsetse fly’s right wing, I have access to the pictures. I discovered this was a passion that I didn’t know was there.”

He may have been influenced by his father who has degrees in botany and human anatomy. Brent plans on taking the Entomological Society of America test to become an Associate Certified Entomologist, normally a two year degree but, because of his field experience, he should be able to test out (after brushing up on nonlocal pests).

Brent not only has an “interest in biology and nature itself” but also enjoys helping people and problem solving. “I really enjoy it when someone calls up and says that they called four other companies who say there is nothing that can be done. It’s like when you hear the stories about three out of four doctors agree? Sometimes you want to know what that other doctor knows that the three don’t. I’m fascinated by that.”

As it is, Brent is the first one-man operator to be president of the Wisconsin Pest Control Association in over thirty years and a “Master Technician” certified by the Wisconsin Pest Control Association. The immediate past president of the WPCA, he was on the board of the association when the Master Technician program began and helped write the initial test. Although Wisconsin requires every applicator to be state certified and licensed, the Master Technician program is run by the WPCA. After waiting a year, Brent took the test himself and six years later, is still the highest scoring Master Technician in the state. He also received a 100% in the legal part of the WPCA’s certification exam. “Only two other people received a 100% on the legal part of it,” he noted. “I always score high on my state exams. I’m real anal about following the letter of the law.”

Born and raised in Kenosha, Brent attended U.W. Parkside. After two years, he ran out of money and went to work for a national pest control service company. He intended to go back to Parkside after a year, but never made it back. Two years later he briefly worked for an insurance company, where he met his wife Judith, then went back to the pest control service. He was subsequently recruited by another national pest control service who groomed him to be a regional technical director because of his ability to train people; “To take things that were complicated and make them simple.” Brent worked for Terminix for two years but was unhappy with “the cookie cutter approach” that, in his view, is not always in the best interest of the consumer. “Some people didn’t get serviced well enough and some would get over-serviced.” As a result, he and his wife started Spectrum Pest Control on Feb. 1, 1994. Not surprisingly, Brent has a much greater passion for his work now that he is on his own.

Fifteen years later he is still a “one man operation by design.” They have no desire to have employees. The difficulty, he notes, is not having three or four employees.

“It’s getting from number one to number two. This kills about half of the successful one man pest control operations because you go through three or four guys, at the cost of $10-15,000 per new hire, before you find the one that stays. You have to go through a background check, training, equipment and everything else. It just takes you out.”

Another of Brent’s certifications is that of a Certified Quality Pro Company. This is a kind of a “Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval for pest control.” You submit to a background check and sign an affidavit agreeing to certain standards of insurance, training, and vehicles, and then take a test. Of course, the certifications and testing imply the biggest area of concern for most people; the toxicity of the pesticides.

According to Brent, the pest control industry is one of the most over-regulated industries because of “perceived risks.” The “actual risks are far lower than industries that have virtually no regulations on them. There are things under your kitchen sink that will kill you or make you sick far quicker than anything any pest control company legally uses inside your home.” The risk of asthma from roaches, and other health risks associated with the urine of rodents gives controlling the pests “a far greater payoff” than the remote risks of pesticide application, in Brent’s view.

The person at the greatest risk is the applicator. But, “when you look at the medical history of applicators, you realize just how safe what we use is. There has never been a correlation between an increase of cancer and applicators,” according to Brent. “We are mixing it. We are applying it. We are breathing it in and sometimes we are absorbing it into our skin. I take all the precautions. So, if the customer sees me respecting a product they realize that I am respecting their safety too. The mentality by a lot of technicians is that I don’t want to wear the gloves because the customer might think it is a lot more dangerous than it is. Then you have to educate them.” The client is far less at risk than the applicator unless they’re “licking floorboards or rolling on the carpeting right after something has been applied.”

The inherent safety and environmental concerns, as well as smart marketing, prompted the
Towles to offer organic pest control services when they opened their business in 1994. Then, there were only a few products available. Even today, the viable “green” products are just a hand-full. One of the major stumbling blocks is the lack of clarity about what “green” means. The National Pest Control Association has been aggressive in clarifying the definition, in Brent’s opinion, but he thinks it will take another ten years before there will be a clear government definition of “green.”

An example of the complexity of the “green” pesticide issue is that of Chrysanthemum oil; a “natural” insecticide made from the flower’s oil. The most common synthetic pesticide available is a version of Chrysanthemum oil called pyrethroids. It has all of the benefits of the natural Chrysanthemum oil but lasts longer. The problem with most natural botanical oil extracts, Brent notes, is that they have a very short period of effectiveness. Although the toxicity of the synthetic might be greater than the natural, synthetics last longer and need to be reapplied fewer times lessoning applicator and environmental exposure. In addition, in some of the formulations of the pyrethroid category of insecticides, all the allergens have been eliminated. Allergens can be a problem with some of the natural oil extracts.

About a year ago Spectrum Pest Control started working on a Quality Pro Green Certification. Brent consulted on the NPA’s certification development and conveyed what he felt were the most important issues from a pest control and consumer perspective. “I am literally Quality Pro Green qualified before they even have the program because they are standards we are already utilizing. We are probably 90% Green.” There are some products he uses that would not fall under a “green” category because there is no better alternative.

The upside to a properly managed “green” program, in Brent’s view, is that one can do more “integrated pest management” using both chemical and organic pesticides. “You weigh the ecological impact of the pesticides. Sometimes the synthetically derived chemical is more earth friendly than the natural version.” A downside, is the degree to which “green” has become a gimmick. “Suddenly, Clorox is relabeling some of their existing products as “green.” Some of it may be “green,” but we don’t have the standards yet.” He wants things that weigh economic and practical considerations and are effective for the environment, not just marketing ploys.

In that same spirit, Brent does not believe politics or religion should be used as a marketing tool. Brent is “a card carrying Republican” and considered McCain “a flaming liberal.” But, that doesn’t change his view that “we all breathe the same air and drink the same water and want to enjoy the same sunsets.” There are people who don’t want to be affiliated with Al Gore’s idea of what “green” means, he noted. “I take it as a good stewardship idea.”

An unexpected element of pest control, Brent notes, is the emotional aspect of it. “When you are doing pest control, it is very emotional.” In Brent’s experience, if he shows up five minutes late people can get “freaked out,” especially if it is the first visit. “They really need you there right away and on time. It is just emotional. If you wake up in the middle of the night with bed bugs in your bed, you’re not going to like it if I cannot get out there for a week. Your going to call the next service. Even if the one who can come out in a week will get rid of it faster, you want the person who can show up yesterday.” There is a temptation to take advantage of this emotion Brent warns. One has to be careful not to fall prey to “manipulations of fear and emotion.”

Speaking of emotion, Brent admitted to another great passion in his life, playing the Irish drum; the Bodhran. Several years ago he bought a drum at Irish Fest and used it as a wall hanging. A year later his wife signed him up for an irish music class at the Kenosha Institute of Art. He enjoyed it. A year after that, he met Jim Mcveigh, a man originally from Belfast at McAuliffe’s Pub in Racine. Brent bought a custom-made, tunable drum and took lessons from Jim. “Somebody who has just learned how to play thinks they are great because they know the accents they want to do and they think they hear them better than they actually do. That is a struggle I go through as well. It can be a ‘dangerous’ instrument in the wrong hands. It is an exciting instrument to play, so when somebody figures out they can finally do something with it, they want to go tell everybody.” Brent may not be telling the world about his Bodhran playing, but he is not shy about his passion for and knowledge of pest control. That is probably fortunate for the people of Kenosha.