[Crown Awards] An Accidental Entomologist

Judy Black never wanted to study bugs. After spending two summers at camp and working with naturalists in a Virginia swamp, she wanted to be a park ranger and live out West.

So she went to college and studied environmental protection, where she had to take a basic entomology course. And thanks to a charismatic and inspiring professor, she became more and more interested in studying insects, and eventually graduated with her master’s degree in entomology.

“I almost came to the industry by accident. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do,” Black said. Then one day, she saw an ad that Terminix was hiring technicians. She figured that, with a master’s degree in entomology, she’d give it a shot.

“It may have been the best accident I’ve ever been involved in,” she said.
Black has since spent nearly 20 years in the pest control industry, starting as a technician, moving to sales and then joining Steritech in 1994, again as a service specialist. It was at that company where her career took off: She’s worked her way up the ranks from entry-level service specialist to regional technical manager, to general manager for Steritech’s Pacific Northwest Branch, and now as technical director for the company’s Pest Prevention Division. She’s also the winner of the second annual PCT Crown Award for Technical Excellence, sponsored by Syngenta Professional Products.

“I think one of the reasons I’ve been successful in the technical arena is that I did start at the ground level and I learned what problems (technicians) have,” Black said. “It made me better able to relate to what they’re going through and think of creative solutions for the problems that they run across.”

TECHNICAL INNOVATION. Her ability to find practical solutions is what brought her to Steritech in 1994. Three weeks into her tenure there, she asked Founder John Whitley how he planned to reach his goal that the company be pesticide free by the year 2000.

“He said, ‘I’m going to hire people like you,’” Black said. “It’s a lot of responsibility. It’s sort of scary in a way. Somebody’s actually going to let me try different things to reduce the use of pesticides — somebody’s giving me free rein to be innovative. It’s neat as a technical person to work for a company that lets you do that.”

And though Steritech has not yet completely eliminated its pesticide use, Black said the company’s drive to find new, environmentally friendly technical solutions has made the company a great fit for her technical work.

“We get a chance to innovate. That, to me, is one of the most exciting things about working here,” she said. “I don’t think you’d find that everywhere in the industry.”

TECHNICIAN TURNOVER. But Black is atypical for the pest control industry. “This industry doesn’t attract a lot of women to it, but there’s a lot of opportunity, I think, for women in this industry because a lot of what you do from a technician standpoint is customer relations, interacting with people,” Black said. “It’s a great industry for women, I just wish there was a way for us to attract more women to the company.”

Steritech studied its employees’ productivity, career advancement and turnover, and found that women accounted for a high percentage of the company’s top performers.

“Women were very successful. The women that we do have are very successful,” Black said. “It was Steritech data, but I think that would probably extrapolate to the industry as a whole.”

CUT THROUGH THE JARGON. And as she has stayed on at Steritech, Black has become more and more involved in the industry. One of her outside activities is serving as chair of the National Pest Management Association’s technical advisory committee.

“Judy is a top-drawer professional, and a consistent professional,” said Greg Baumann, vice president of technical services for NPMA, who has worked with Black since the early 1990s. “She has a keen, commonsense understanding of the industry.”

One of the body’s projects was to develop the first-ever accreditation requirements for termite technicians in Pennsylvania.

“We had the opportunity to make this very bureaucratic or very industry friendly. Her participation allowed us to make it a very industry-friendly project that is still used to this day,” Baumann said. “Sometimes when you have a tech committee, things can get pretty complicated and scientific. She’s able to cut through the science and put it in terms that everybody in the industry can understand.”

CREATIVE CUSTOMER SERVICE. Black said one of her favorite projects was working to develop technician protocols.
But not every project has a solution. Once, before gel baits were labeled for use near food, she and her team were trying to eliminate cockroaches from an industrial kitchen using only solid cockroach baits. Unfortunately, it just didn’t work.

“One of the most rewarding parts of what you do as a regional technical person is working with clients to solve what other people might think is an unsolvable problem. To think up a creative solution and go back and see it work. We’ve got a happy customer after that.”

The author is assistant editor for PCT magazine.

What you didn't know about Judy Black:

In her spare time, Judy Black participates in triathlons. Three years ago, her brother, Larry (who has qualified for the Ironman in Hawaii), convinced her to try the grueling triple threat sport. Black, an avid runner, entered one in Denver, and loved it.

“It gives you a lot of variety,” she said. “When all I did was run, I would just get hurt. When you’re training for triathlons, you spread out the pain, basically.”

She also has lived in nine states — Alaska, California (twice), Colorado, Illinois, Maryland, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Virginia and West Virginia — and Italy and Spain. Her father was in the Navy, so her family moved around a lot. “It opened my eyes up to other cultures,” Black said of the constant moves, “and makes me better able to get along with people.”