Ted Brayton

All photos courtesy of Ted Brayton

When asked about some of his hobbies/interests, Ted Brayton gave several answers one might expect (woodworking, coaching youth sports, working out in the gym) and one that might be considered peculiar: “Public policy and education…that’s a hobby to me. Working on legislative stuff, working on planning the rodent exclusion meeting, rewriting our manual and exam for our WDI registry…it takes a lot of time.”

The payoff for Brayton is that these long hours are helping an industry that provided for his family while growing up, and an industry in which he has spent his entire professional career, currently serving as branch manager of Griggs & Browne’s Abington, Mass., office, and as an active member of the New England Pest Management Association (NEPMA) and the National Pest Management Association (NPMA).

Growing Up in the Biz

While Brayton is a pest control industry advocate in every way imaginable, it took a while for him to get there.

His father, Eddie Brayton, spent 25 years with Griggs & Browne, working out of the company’s Providence, R.I., headquarters office.

“In those days, he drove a Griggs & Browne truck with skull and crossbones on it and my sister and I didn’t want him dropping us off at elementary school,” he recalled, adding that once the truck got to within a couple blocks of the school they would ask to be let out and walk the rest of the way.

Other memories were better. He made cardboard fold-up rodent stations — and was paid 10 cents for every one he made — and he accompanied his dad on service visits to accounts such as hospitals where he got to observe cockroach control and fogging first-hand.

Student-Athlete

Brayton’s early interests and talents were in sports. He was a standout kicker and punter in high school, and earned a full-ride scholarship to play for the University of Richmond, at the time a Division I-AA football program.

While Brayton was good enough to earn a scholarship, he readily admitted, “It took me about a week-and-a-half to figure out that I probably wasn’t going to the NFL and that I should get the most out of my free education.”

Still, Brayton persevered on the gridiron, handling kickoff duties for three years and starting his final season as the team’s punter. Brayton said that being a student-athlete also helped him learn time management.

After trying several majors, Brayton settled on business administration. Also during college, he worked summers at Rhode Island Hospital Trust, a large Rhode Island bank. He graduated from the University of Richmond in 1991 with a bachelor’s degree in business administration.

The goal was to “get into banking and then see what developed from there. Unfortunately, I ended up graduating at the wrong time,” Brayton said, referring to the recession of the early 1990s.

Unable to find work in the business world that was to his liking, Brayton reflected back to an experience he had in his senior year of college where he helped tutor a star basketball player who was failing a religion class and on the verge of dropping out.

“I spent the entire semester working with him and giving him all of the skills that I had picked up in my four years: taking notes, highlighting, preparing for exams, writing essays and papers — all things that I needed help with,” Brayton said.

All that work paid off. The professor told Brayton that the student-athlete he tutored ended up getting the highest grade in the class on the final exam. This experience left an impression on Brayton and piqued his interest in becoming a teacher. He enrolled in classes to become a teacher while at the same time taking an open position at Griggs & Browne (where his dad was a manager). Brayton found himself at a crossroads. “At the end of the first year, I was getting close to having to go student teach. So I would have to quit my job to go student teach for free to hopefully get another job that wouldn’t pay me as much as I was getting [at Griggs & Browne]. I decided that ship had sailed,” he said.

After coming on board with Griggs & Browne in 1992, he progressed to branch manager of the Abington, Mass., office in 1995, a position he holds to this day.

Griggs & Browne Tenure

When Brayton started at Griggs & Browne in 1992, he “had a few rough edges” to smooth out, according to Dave Heal, executive vice president, Griggs & Browne, who has worked alongside both Eddie and Ted Brayton.

But Heal also recognized potential in the younger Brayton. “When we had manager meetings, Teddy would always come prepared with numbers and a plan for what direction we are going to go. Not a lot of ‘off the cuff’ stuff with Teddy. That’s not his style. He comes prepared.”

Over the years, Brayton has assumed additional responsibilities with Griggs & Browne, including assisting with administrative work, selling, plugging gaps (when the positions are short-staffed), “putting out fires” and serving as the coordinator for mobile technology and Sentricon.

Brayton’s “style” also provided an important counter-balance to Heal. Heal said, “There were times in my growth where I didn’t hold people accountable enough. I spent too much time thinking about what the person is going through rather than saying ‘This is a business.’”

Brayton and Heal also meet every Thursday to discuss a variety of issues, and although they are “mostly on the same page,” Heal credits Brayton for being a change agent. He said, “Ted is more open to change than me, and he’ll bring ideas in and he’ll get feedback from other managers” to make a case for change.

And Heal is quick to credit Brayton for what he considers his most important role, as father to Ben and Betsy. “They are such well-rounded kids. Betsy is a very successful nurse and Ben is a big-time accountant in New Jersey. Just great personable kids who will look you in the eye when you talk to them.”

Star Spar

That same style of discipline, organization and consensus-building observed by Heal and others (see related story, right) is what has made Brayton such a valuable member of the NPMA’s Public Policy team and the NEPMA’s Education and Public Policy committees.

Brayton’s regulatory/legislative involvement is something that has evolved. He joined NEPMA early in his career, serving on a number of different committees and learning from longtime members like Galvin Murphy Sr., Tony DeJesus, Kevin Moran and others. Long-tenured and experienced members are why NEPMA has become such an effective advocacy force, Brayton said.

“You come to the board meetings, you get involved and then you run for a position,” Brayton said. “Once you’re on the board, you help out and you plug in and you see how things are done and why they’ve been done.”

These experiences laid an important foundation for Brayton, he said. “So that’s like 10 or 11 years and you’ve picked up all that experience and found those things that you’re comfortable with that you like. And then it’s like, ‘How can I give back?’”

One of the ways Brayton has given back on a national level is being a part of the preemption discussion. NPMA and its members continue to push to have pesticide preemption federally codified. NPMA and others have long argued that pest control oversight is best handled jointly by each state’s lead agency and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). As part of a company that operates in multiple states, Brayton has seen first-hand the challenges of having to comply with different laws and regulations, and he has shared these experiences with fellow pest management professionals, as well as lawmakers.

Another way Brayton has given back is by becoming NPMA’s State Policy Affairs Representative (SPAR) for Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont. These individuals are tasked with monitoring, communicating and assisting in activities relating to legislative and regulatory initiatives that impact the structural pest management industry.

JD Darr, director of legislative and regulatory affairs, NPMA, describes Brayton as a talented communicator with an impressive network. “This allows him to quickly gather intel, consider multiple perspectives, prescribe an effective course of action, and clearly and thoughtfully articulate the importance of our industry’s work,” he said.

Brayton said he thinks his experiences are preparing him for challenges that lie ahead on the legislative/regulatory front. “All of my experience in learning the process for each state for how to submit testimonies, for how to register for oral testimony, for how formal or relaxed you need to be dressed…is going to be needed for these really big battles, which is the repeal of preemption and rodenticide [restrictions]. It’s like you can hear the drum beat.”