Kevin Connelly Retiring After 33 Years in the Industry

CHICAGO – After 33 years involved in pest control, Kevin Connelly is trading in his sprayer and spreadsheets to spend more time with his family. Connelly announced he is selling MASH Services of Illinois, a company he has been involved with since 1990, to Plunkett’s Pest Control, effective Jan. 2.

Connelly said he approached Plunkett’s last year about a potential sale and the two sides reached an agreement earlier this summer. He informed his 10 employees of the forthcoming change around Labor Day.

“Everybody has to hang up the spikes at some point and I thought the timing was right,” Connelly said. “I liked the idea of selling to Plunkett’s because they are a 100-year-old, family-owned company from the Midwest with a good reputation in the industry.”

Connelly, who turns 65 next year, said he has been working towards retirement since he started with MASH Services in 1990 as a service technician. At that time, he was a single dad who was saving money to put his daughter, Megan, through college, as well as his own personal retirement. Megan is now working as an adviser and professor, teaching communications at the University of Iowa medical school.

MASH Services had been owned by Gerald Leeb, who had been a CPA and restaurant owner. Leeb observed pest control professionals servicing his restaurant and was intrigued by the business model and the industry’s potential. He purchased a local pest control company in 1972 and throughout the 1980s he acquired other local small companies that would eventually operate under the MASH brand. (MASH is an acronym for Men Armed with Scientific Hardware and Leeb also was a fan of the movie and TV series “MASH.”)

Connelly said what drew him to MASH Services was location more than anything else. “As a single dad, I was looking for a place to work that was close to where I lived, so I figured I would do this for a year or so,” he recalled. “But after a while I got pretty good at it and started thinking it was pretty cool. It involved nature and science, and it was interesting. I found it hard to walk away from.”

Leeb also recognized Connelly’s abilities and within three years promoted him to service manager. “Jerry found that I could do some of the work that he’d been doing administratively.” One of the ways Connelly helped grow the company was by placing more of an emphasis on sales and marketing, areas that were not Leeb’s strengths.

As Leeb moved towards retirement, he worked out a succession plan that involved selling a part of MASH Services to Connelly, who would also manage the trust of Leeb's son.

Looking back at his career, Connelly recalled several memorable pest control encounters, including treating the home of an elderly woman who was a WWII concentration camp survivor. “She was dealing with an unbelievably bad bed bug problem, but she really needed other help. We hooked her up with an organization that provides services to Jewish elderly and we reached out to social services,” Connelly said.

Another memorable experience for Connelly was being one of the catalysts for a 2010 study by the University of Kentucky. Connelly was one of several pest management professionals who reported to UK entomologist Dr. Michael Potter about people not reacting to bed bug bites. In Connelly’s experience, he was observing that less than 20 percent of seniors in a building he was servicing were not reacting to bed bug bites. “I called Dr. Potter and he told me that he was hearing similar reports. He said, ‘Kevin we need to do a research project on this and you’ve just volunteered for it,’” said Connelly, whose findings were published in the 2010 PCT article “The Sensitivity Spectrum: Human Reactions to Bed Bug Bites.” 

Connelly said he is looking forward to retirement. He’ll be working in a consulting capacity for Plunkett’s, including dealing with client/employee issues and other transitional issues. Beyond that he is looking forward to spending more time with wife Liz, including traveling the Midwest and U.S., and visiting Civil War battlefields.