Kevin Lemasters

As one of the most effective lobbyists for the pest control industry, it might surprise you to learn what led Kevin Lemasters, president of Action Leadership, Pensacola, Fla., to get involved with legislative and regulatory issues.

“It was personal embarrassment,” Lemasters recalls. “When I became president of the Colorado Pest Control Association in 2015, Colorado was going through the sunset process for the Pesticide Applicators’ Act. I was going to meetings, so I had a seat at the table, but I felt like I was at the kid’s table. After that, I said to myself, ‘I don’t ever want to be in this situation again. I want to understand what’s going on.’”

In his quest to gain a better understanding of regulatory and legislative issues impacting the pest control industry, Lemasters became actively involved with public policy on the local, state and national levels. He joined NPMA’s Public Policy committee and within six months he had met all of his state senators and state house representatives in northern Colorado.

The fact that Lemasters jumped into public policy work with both feet, wanting to learn as much as he could about the undertaking and the people involved, comes as no surprise to people who know him well.

“Kevin will always be prepared,” says Brent Boles, owner, Green Pest Solutions, Topeka, Kan., and a former colleague of Lemasters from their days together at Schendel Services. “You won’t find Kevin at a meeting if he doesn’t have information — the details, the notes, everything it is going to take to have meaningful conversations and to move the ideas forward. And he’s extremely principled.”

Deni Naumann, former Copesan Services president who hired Lemasters as service quality manager in 2011, says, “Kevin brings consistency and a collaborative spirit” and she added that Lemasters has been a motivator for other NPMA members to serve as SPARs (State Policy Affairs Representatives).

During the past 30 years, whether it’s lobbying for the pest control industry or running operations at the various companies he’s worked for, Lemasters has been a steadying force, always willing to do whatever it takes to help his teammates succeed and advocate for the betterment of the industry he loves.

How He Got Here

Lemasters didn’t grow up in the pest control industry, but he’s spent most of his adult life working in it.

Lemasters hails from rural Sumner County, Kan., the wheat capital of the world. His dad, Fred, was a blue-collar worker in the aircraft industry, while his mother, Joann, was a stay-at-home mom, raising Kevin and his younger siblings Tracy and Brian. His early interests included music and he had his sights set on becoming a music teacher.

Money was tight for the family of five, so Lemasters decided to enlist in the U.S. Army following graduation to earn money for college. Serving in a mechanized mortar unit between conflicts, Lemasters says his Army days were “not the best highlights of my life.”

After basic training ended and discipline let up, Lemasters says he “went off the rails” and lived a wild life for a couple of years.

Lemasters’ wild time would come to an end thanks to a chance encounter at, of all places, a bar. At a watering hole near his hometown, the recently discharged Lemasters met Kimberly, who would soon become his wife. “That crazy era, those couple of years that I had…set me up to find the woman of my dreams. I learned enough about myself in those couple of years that I could get pretty crazy and not be able to reel it back in on my own. Kimberly was just super down to earth and able to keep me in check. So, we balance each other pretty well in that way.”

Three months after the couple met they got engaged and 11 months later they were married, a union that is going strong 32 years later.

‘Stumbling’ Into Pest Control

Although Lemasters enlisted in the military to earn college money, after his Army experience he “didn’t have a mindset to go back to school. I’d kind of lost my passion for the music thing, and at this point I was just ready to get a job and go to work,” he says.

Seeking a job that offered decent pay and benefits for his family, in 1993 Lemasters answered a help wanted ad to work for Orkin’s Wichita, Kan., office. Lemasters took to the profession right away, taking ownership of his route. “I loved the fact that as long as I would take care of my customers and take care of the work that was given to me, people left me alone,” he says. “As the new guy in the office I serviced some pretty rough areas of Wichita but that didn’t deter me. I was on top of my route.”

Lemasters’ next stop was Wichita-based Midwest Pest Control, where he worked the next two-and-a-half years, primarily performing general pest control work. Lemasters liked the owners and working conditions at Midwest, and he flourished there, earning large sales commissions. In 1997, a friend connected him with Paul Mages, owner of Schendel Pest Services, Topeka, Kan. Mages hired Lemasters as a service technician on a track to becoming a manager.

Lemasters would soon become manager of Schendel’s Wichita, Kan., office, a position he had doubts about at first. When Lemasters took over the Wichita office, the company’s national sales manager was Brent Boles (Mages’ son-in-law). “I remember speaking with Brent and saying, ‘I’m just not sure I am cut out for this.’ The people part always came natural to me. I’ve always been good communicating with people; I care about people and just have a heart to serve. But the business part of it — reading spreadsheets and P&L statements — I was just a guy who stumbled into pest control.”

But Boles saw something in Lemasters and reassured him that he was on the right track. “Kevin was always curious. He wanted to improve. He wanted to grow,” Boles recalls. “It was very clear early on that whatever Kevin set his mind out to do, Kevin could do. So, it wasn’t a stretch at all to see that he had the ability to move to operational and leadership roles, which is what he did.”

Boles’ instincts proved correct. Lemasters says something clicked three to six months after he became manager of the Wichita branch. “During the next few years, we just had a ton of success. I mean, in the four-and-a-half years I was there, we tripled the size of the Wichita office.”

Following this success, Lemasters was promoted to director of operations at Schendel Services, a leadership position that also required his family to move to the company’s headquarters in Topeka, Kan. In this role he oversaw eight managers in six states.

Boles, whose strengths are his business acumen — not operations — was the perfect complement to Lemasters.

“We improved dramatically while Kevin was here because of his ability to manage the details, to understand regulatory compliance, to put together the programs necessary for rapid expansion,” Boles says, adding that while Lemasters was with Schendel Services the company went from servicing three states to six states.

Copesan Comes Calling

Schendel Services was part of Copesan, an alliance of large regional, commercially focused pest control providers. Lemasters served on the Copesan Development Committee, where his work caught the attention of Copesan’s Naumann.

“What struck me was that he was always a proponent for doing the right things for technicians and making their jobs easier,” Naumann recalls. “That, and he was also focused on the big picture, such as the positive effect of digital, electronic data collection and those type of things.”

In 2011, Naumann, with the blessing of Copesan Partner companies Schendel Services and Varment Guard, recruited Lemasters and Varment Guard’s Dave Ramsey to join Copesan in newly created service quality managers positions. “They played such a key part at Copesan with quality efforts, how we set up training, key metrics for our service Partners’ performance and interacting with North American clients,” she says. Lemasters says that first year at Copesan was one of the most fun times of his life, “trying to create systems and processes and getting to know the service companies. It was a blast.”

The challenge came when Copesan lost large Partners (due to M&A) and replaced them with multiple Partners. For example, when Western Exterminator was sold Lemasters says he “lived out in California a lot that year” getting the replacement Partners onboarded and up to speed.

New Proving Grounds

Also through Copesan, Lemasters met Marc Dykstra, owner of EnviroPest, Loveland, Colo. On a trip from Kansas City to Colorado, Dykstra met with Lemasters with the following proposition: “Would you think about coming to Colorado and running my business for me?” Lemasters was torn because he enjoyed his role at Copesan. He decided he would only join Dykstra if he had an ownership stake, which Dykstra obliged.

After consulting with Kimberly, he decided to make the move in 2013. While Dykstra focused on marketing and website-related functions, Lemasters ran the business and effectively became the face of the company.

Also during his time at EnviroPest, Lemasters raised his profile within NPMA, particularly on the Public Policy team. Chris Gorecki, vice president of operational support at Rollins and longtime NPMA Public Policy committee member, praises Lemasters for educating himself on issues and conveying his thoughts in a manner that fosters group discussion. “Kevin listens a lot and does not talk just to talk,” Gorecki says. “When he speaks you should listen because he has done his homework and thought through the issue.”

On a committee with a lot of big personalities, Lemasters has found a voice because he commands respect based on his performance, says friend and colleague Mike Rottler, longtime CEO of Rottler Pest Solutions, St. Louis. “Kevin is big picture, thoughtful and really at the end of the day he wants to do the right thing for everybody involved. He’s one of those folks that is capable of putting his self-interests on a back burner and getting things done for the good of the group.”

Perhaps Lemasters’ two crowning achievements on the public policy front were helping the Colorado Pest Control Association (CPCA) hire a lobbyist, which has enabled the association to become more proactive; and his efforts to get HB 1328, “Landlord And Tenant Duties Regarding Bed Bugs,” signed into law. Colorado House Rep. Leslie Herod sponsored HB 1328 and CPCA developed a relationship with her that enabled the association to “get a seat at the table” to discuss this bill. CPCA, working with NPMA’s Public Policy team, was able to get language inserted into the bill that positions PMPs as a private-sector solution for Colorado’s bed bug problem.

HB 1328 requires tenants to promptly notify a landlord when a lessee knows or reasonably suspects that a rented residential unit contains bed bugs. Not more than 96 hours after receiving notice, a landlord in most circumstances must hire a PMP to inspect and treat the dwelling unit and any contiguous dwelling units for bed bugs. Except as otherwise provided, a landlord is responsible for all costs associated with mitigating bed bugs.

Herod also is part of the National Black Caucus of State Legislators (NBCSL). She helped NPMA get involved in that organization, which has opened the doors for NPMA to leverage the Colorado bill with other bed bug bills being introduced across the United States.

Another Crossroads

In 2020, both Lemasters and Dykstra were at crossroads personally and professionally. Dykstra wanted to move to Wyoming while Lemasters wanted to spend more time with his family.

They both agreed the time was right to explore options, including selling. After meeting with Anticimex’s David Billingsly, they liked the idea of selling to the Swedish-based firm that is rapidly acquiring companies in North America. In 2020, the deal was completed.

Lemasters ran the EnviroPest operation for a year before transitioning to the newly created position of vice president, branch manager training and development of Anticimex. But as he took stock of his life, he decided he needed to “take a sabbatical” and spend more time with his family. So he resigned that position to focus on Action Leadership, the coaching/consulting business that he launched five years ago to help out a few business friends.

“In Colorado I was also volunteering to consult through the Small Business Development Centers,” he says. “It just happened organically as I was being asked to consult and help others grow their teams and help their businesses.”

Whatever his next move is within the pest control industry, Lemasters will have a place. As Rottler says, “If you were going to start a company from scratch, and you wanted to grow really aggressively and by doing the right things, I would think Kevin would want to be one of your first hires...if not your first.”