Hawx Makes Series of Strategic Personnel Additions

OGDEN, Utah — Hawx Services, which in July 2021 partnered with private equity firm PCM Growth, has made another strategic growth move with the addition of industry professionals Brad Pitts, Scott Broaddus and Daniel Baldwin.

Pitts joined Hawx as chief operating officer, while Broaddus is the company’s vice president of expansion, and Baldwin is Hawx’s vice president of technical services.

Pitts has served in a variety of service and leadership positions in the pest control industry. His career dates to 1982, working for Dallas Pest & Termite Control alongside the late Burt Smith and Rick Rogers. His next step was Hometeam Pest Defense from 1996 to 2006, where he served as region vice president, responsible for markets from Texas to California. He then moved to Rollins, where he stayed for 10 years, serving as vice president of Orkin’s south central division. Pitts joined Environmental Pest Services in 2016 and worked there for two years as vice president, responsible for leading the Arrow Environmental Services brand and the State Pest Control brand.

After a one-year hiatus from the service side of the pest control industry while working as a fulltime consultant on a remote rodent monitoring system, Pitts returned in April 2020 to work for Fox Pest Control as chief growth officer. Pitts said he enjoyed his time at Fox, a high-growth company, but was intrigued by the opportunity to join Hawx Services, also a rapidly growing firm.

After meeting with PCM Growth founder and leader Mike Paulus, Hawx President Matt Mehr, CEO Scott Wilson, and Chief Revenue Officer JK Gleave, Pitts said he was impressed with their vision “to leverage technology and build a business based on a combination of quality customer service and fast growth." 

Pitts has been working to identify and hire other strong industry leaders, launch additional service offerings, implement a net promoter score system, and standardize processes and operations at Hawx, a company that relies heavily on door-to-door sales. His experience working with Fox Pest Control, also a company that uses D2D sales professionals, as well as contracting a D2D sales teams while at Rollins/Orkin, has been valuable, he said. “I know door-to-door sales enough to make me dangerous,” he said with a chuckle. “I may not know everything about D2D, but I know how to grow companies, develop leaders, and know how to grow good businesses through quality, providing an excellent employee experience, and creating an excellent customer experience. And that's what I feel like I can do here.”

Broaddus, who is based in Raleigh, N.C., comes to Hawx after having spent 15 years on the manufacturing side, working for Bayer Environmental Science. Most recently, he was sales and business lead, Bayer Digital Management, and business manager for Bayer Environmental Science.

As vice president of expansion, Broaddus leads a variety of projects and initiatives to support the company’s expansion and growth efforts. He also works with cross-functional teams on operations, sales, marketing and strategy to establish best practices, systems and processes. All of these efforts are “designed around helping Hawx become more efficient and effective in how we hire, develop our people, grow in strategic markets and really deliver an exceptional customer experience,” he said.

The opportunity to join Hawx was attractive to Broaddus “because I already knew they had a great culture and leadership, but more importantly they are entrepreneurial in spirit. This entrepreneurial approach and willingness to challenge the status quo is what really excited me about coming to the service side with an opportunity to do things differently.”

Baldwin has been in the pest control industry since 1995 and has served in a variety of areas including distribution, manufacturing and service. From 2019 to 2021, he was director of technical services, training and regulatory services for Terminix. Prior to that he served as senior scientist, Restaurant Food Safety at Taco Bell Corporate, where he managed the company’s pest control and regulatory compliance efforts.

As vice president of technical services at Hawx, Baldwin is involved in developing standard operating procedures (SOPs), assisting with product selection, and quality assurance.

“The bigger thing, and what I am really excited about, is the training side. We are really trying to modernize how we view the training of technicians.” In particular, Baldwin is focused on building a career-oriented training and education program, he said. “We want to build long-term employees who are on a career path.”