[Rearview/Book Review]

Pest Control industry donates time to ABC's 'Extreme Home Makeover'

Several companies in the pest management industry have donated their time and services to help families in need on ABC’s TV show "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition." Here’s a review of their donations:

• S.C.O.’s Medallion Healthy Homes, a manufacturer, distributor and marketer of ozone-based air purification systems, has donated the company’s services and products to all the "Extreme Makeover" Homes. Medallion is donating "Ozone Shock Treatment" — this speeds up by years the degassing of all chemicals that are used in the process of remodeling a house and the new "Terminator," which when installed in the HVAC system will purify and decontaminate the air the occupants breathe.

• David Carter Exterminating Co., a 24-year-old, family-owned business located in Kenner, La., donated its time and services to a family in Braithwaite, La. Since termites are a major problem in the New Orleans area, Owner David Carter contacted the Extreme Makeover team about donating his services for a termite treatment. Carter, along with two of his employees, performed a termite treatment on the home to ensure that termites would not damage the work being done by the Makeover crew. This home was not completely demolished so only a post-construction treatment was necessary. The home was renovated for the Leslie family, which includes a mother and her three children (her husband and 16-year-old son died in an auto accident).

• Orkin donated its time and services to a deserving family in the Phoenix area. The pest control package included termite pre-treatment, as well as indoor and outdoor scorpion exclusion. Orkin pest control professionals worked on site with host Ty Pennington and his design team for a week to ensure the family’s dream home was protected from termites and scorpions. Construction began February 6 on a brand new home to fulfill the dreams of Gilbert residents Brian and Nicole Okvath and their six children.

Book Review

If your roster of employees reads like a family tree you know that running a family business is complicated. And everyone knows that a good business functions best when the entire staff unites toward a common goal, as a family would. However, even the happiest of families can be bound by volatile relationships.

Kent Bond, owner of a Terminix franchise in Kerrville, Texas, employs 10 individuals as his surrogate business "family." Like any other PCO patriarch, he has seen his fair share of conflict and confusion. And like any conscientious papa, Bond said he’s always looking for ways to improve the relationships between family members. "Whether these family members are actually blood relatives or not is inconsequential," he said.

Bond recommends Reconciling Relationships and Preserving the Family Business: Tools for Success, by Ruth McClendon and Leslie B. Kadis to any business owner who recognizes that all relationships require a tune-up once in awhile. Arguably this is most relevant in a "family business relational environment," as the book refers to it.

"The title is a perfectly accurate explanation of what you’ll find inside," Bond said. "It’s a guideline to keeping a business on the road to progress when there are relatives involved or any similar hierarchy of employees."

The book tackles the complexity of obligations, loyalties and responsibilities every business member faces. Bond said that learning how to maintain strong employee relationships was but one of many helpful business strategies he gleaned from the book. "It explains how dividing different areas of business and delegating them among different individual employees is a good start," Bond said. "I think the book has definitely helped me learn how to improve our awareness of one another and our ability to communicate."

Designed to assist where personal lives intertwine with financial interdependencies, the book provides a "reconciliation model" for relationship repair and how to defeat the primary obstacles facing many struggling businesses: oppression and disengagement.

For a chance to win a FREE copy of the book, visit www.pctonline.com/AprilBook. — Will Nepper

The author is a contributing writer to PCT magazine.