Celebrating 5 Years!

The Professional Women in Pest Management of New England will be celebrating its fifth anniversary in November. The chapter was started in 2017 by Marillian Missiti (chair) of Buono Pest Control and me (co-chair Kelley Altland of Bell Laboratories). In 2020, Courtney Carace of Pest-End joined as a committee member. The mission statement of PWIPM of New England is “to empower women in the pest management industry through recruitment, education, mentoring and professional development.”

Throughout the years, PWIPM of New England has been on the forefront of planning events and training meetings for its members. Some of the in-person events included:

• Membership Breakfast and Networking
• Customer Service Training
• Intro to Entomology
• Organization and Time Management
• Women’s Leadership Summit
• Being a Pest Management Professional

PIVOTING. During COVID, PWIPM of New England was able to easily pivot to a virtual format to keep in contact with its members during a challenging time. To help all women reap the benefits of the training, we opened registration to women across the world. People joined from across the U.S., as well as Pakistan, Australia, Mexico and other countries. The virtual events included:

• Building a Resilient Personal Brand
• Why an SEO-Friendly Website Matters, Before Navigating the World of Creepy Targeted Ads?
• Virtual Networking Breakfast
• Forging New Frontiers: Women Leaders in the Pest Control Industry
• Smashing the Glass Ceiling and Inspiring the Next Generation of Women to Lead
• How to Deal with Difficult Conversations

GOING GLOBAL. PWIPM of New England has collaborated with experienced and influential women across the globe. Our panel discussions were held in conjunction with other PWIPM chapters including Pakistan, Illinois, and New Jersey. We enjoy attending other chapters’ events and including them in ours! Guest speakers have included Lisa DiDomenico, Eve Pappas, Sheri Spencer, Heather Gooch, Ayesha Azam, Robiar Smith, Julie Heincelman, Heather Alonso, Molly Moran, Marinn Bengel, Kelly Decollibus-Fillion, Kait LeDonne, Missiti and Carace. In addition, a few men have spoken and provided their knowledge to us. They included George Williams and Brian McEwen. We appreciate them volunteering their time and resources to support PWIPM of New England. Throughout the years, PWIPM of New England has been lucky to have companies donate space for us to hold our meetings free of charge. Thank you to Big Blue Bug Solutions, Forshaw, Orkin and Veseris. Donations of prizes are important for us and our fundraising efforts. Donations were given by B&G, Bell Laboratories, Buono Pest Control and Pest-End.

In 2020, PWIPM of New England began honoring women with our Women of Excellence Award. The regional honor is open to women across the pest management industry — PMPs, manufacturers, research organizations, etc., who have demonstrated outstanding leadership and have made notable contributions to the development and growth of the profession and their companies. This award is presented annually at the New England Pest Management Association (NEPMA) Spring Training awards dinner. Each year, all the past winners are invited back to the awards dinner to celebrate the current year’s winner. Winners have included:

• 2020 — Julie Heincelman, A.C.E., Food and the Drug and the Bug
• 2021 — Courtney Carace, A.C.E., Pest-End
• 2022 — Hope Bowman, B.C.E., Waltham Pest Services

For the past few years, PWIPM of New England has gotten more involved in fundraising during the various events it attends annually. We have attended NPMA’s Eastern Conference as well as NEPMA’s Spring and Fall trainings. Fundraising allows the chapter to supplement our budget from NEPMA to further empower women in New England. PWIPM of New England enjoys connecting with other women in the pest control industry and introducing them to the benefits of PWIPM. The NEPMA board of directors and membership have been extremely supportive of the chapter during the past five years. They understand the impact PWIPM has on their business. PWIPM of New England has worked on promoting its brand through different swag items during the past five years. We work exclusively with John Wood of Boosters Inc. We have been able to have t-shirts, tumblers, pens, decals and journals created with our logo on them. Sales of these items help us to continue to empower women and promote PWIPM in New England.

PWIPM of New England would like to thank NEPMA for supporting our vision the past five years. Because of them, we can empower women not only in New England but across the country and globe. We provide them with a monthly update at NEPMA board of directors meetings and they help us to meet our goals. We thank the NEPMA membership for supporting us through raffle prize purchases and sending their employees to our trainings.

PWIPM of New England is on social media. Be sure to like and follow our pages on Facebook and LinkedIn to stay up to date on our training events both in-person and virtually. Since 2020, we have been recording our trainings and posting them to YouTube.

We cannot wait to welcome the women of the pest management industry to our hometown of Boston for PestWorld 2022. We hope that all PWIPM supporters will join us for the breakfast on Thursday morning and receive a special gift from us!

The author is PWIPM co-chair. To contact her and to learn more about joining PWIPM of New England and how to participate in any of its forums contact her at Kaltland@belllabs.com.