[Rodent Control] They're Out!

Fans at Turner Field, home of the Atlanta Braves, are dazzled by the stadium’s blend of technology and an atmosphere of old-time baseball. Among the visual delights are BravesVision video board in centerfield, a PlazaVision video board in the Fan Plaza and more than 500 television monitors scattered throughout the ballpark.

But what fans won’t see and experience at Turner Field are rodent intruders in the massive structure and its surrounding grounds.

The Braves are winners on the field and with their fans in Atlanta, but the winning team behind the scenes is Active Pest Control, McDonough, Ga.

THE MAN IN CHARGE. Bob Payne of Active is the man responsible for much of the success of the company’s commercial account department, which does business with many Turner business entities.

Payne, Active Pest Control’s technical director and commercial division manager, joined the Georgia company in 2006 after a long career in commercial pest control, food safety sanitation and as a professional speaker. Owner Tony Carder hired Payne and gave him free rein to expand the business.

“Tony cut me loose and lets me do what’s right. And what’s right costs a lot of money. He’s not afraid to spend money on equipment and that’s what it takes,” Payne said.

In the pre-Payne era, Active was primarily a termite company with little commercial experience. Initially, Payne secured the contract for Turner Properties by convincing the firm that it should do business with those companies that do business with them. Active was, at the time, spending several hundreds of thousands of dollars having Turner produce its commercials.

“It’s a huge operation with studios, offices, production facilities. It took me months to put together a contract,” Payne said. That contract was accepted and Payne was overseeing the work when the opportunity came up at Turner Field. Dawn Gepfer, facility manager at Turner Field, went on the initial inspection with Payne early in 2007.

“There were zero rodent control devices being used. There was no equipment whatsoever,” Payne said.

THE WAY OF PAYNE. Active started its work in February with a big splash. “We took a large team in the first day, had lots of trucks out front,” he said. About 240 pieces of equipment — bait stations, snap traps, repeating traps, glueboards and bait — were placed that first day. In fact, Active’s literature proudly announces that the company is the official pest control provider for Turner Field.

Payne has been using Bell Laboratories’ rodent control products for as long as he can remember. At Turner Field, Payne worked with Bell Technical Representative Steve Sullivan.

“Active really knows what it’s doing,” Sullivan said.

Payne said that the company achieved significant reductions with Bell’s Fastrac and Final rodenticides, Protecta Bait Stations, Trapper T-Rex rat snap traps, Provoke attractant and Trapper 24/7 repeating mouse traps.

WHERE NO ONE ELSE GOES. Payne said his success in commercial accounts can be summed up as follows: “We open areas that have never been opened before. We go places where no one else wants to go.” At Turner Field, there were numerous areas that get visited infrequently, and that’s where the company had its success.

“We went into cabling rooms, storage rooms, recycling rooms, trash chutes, mechanical places that people don’t like to go. We’ve been given incredible access. I don’t think there is any place we haven’t been,” he said.

The day-to-day work at Turner Field is done by Active Pest Control veteran technician Ted Lieb. He’s at the park two days a week.

“Two days a week is probably overkill, but that’s OK. That’s from my experience in food service and the sanitation industries. We spend a lot of money, but that’s the way it should be done,” Payne said.

The Active motto is “Where relationships matter,” and that’s what Payne said brought him to the company in the first place.

“It’s not about rats and mice, it’s about relating to people,” Payne said. “We are very present there. My guess is that we probably overwhelm them with everything that we do.”

The author is owner of Dunlop Associates, Madison, Wis.