Selling a Pest Control Company to PestCo, Thompson Street Capital | Ron Hodgkin’s POTOMAC Experience

My name is Ron Hodgkins. I live in Southwestern Illinois. This is my wife Rhonda, and we sold our company Bel-o Pest Solutions.

I went to Texas right out of high school, and went to work for a Texas power line as alignment, and I was down there for just a little under a year. But I came back and on the job as the only employee of a pest control company that was operated out of the owner’s basement in April, and then he had an aneurysm. They called me at like six in the morning and said that he was in intensive care.

I went into the office and I just — I knew my job was over because I didn’t have a license. I didn’t know how to do the work. You know up until that point he would take me out to do a treatment and say drill holes here and pump that stuff that’s in the barrel in these holes. I had no idea what I was doing. So I went there to quit, thinking okay, I don’t know how to do this so I can’t help you.

And his two little girls come running around the corner and I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t quit. I got some pest control manuals and I’d knock on the door and ask the customer what their issues they were seeing, then I’d run back to the truck and read real quick and figure out what the heck to do.

And that’s when I learned that good customer service out does bad pest control every day of the week.

So we moved it out of her basement and it started growing. I started hiring people and in 1988 I bought it from them, and we just grew it and grew it. And then I sold that company in 2005. A year later I found myself without a job, and then started Bel-o.

Bel-o is a company that I started with a friend of mine who owned a heating, cooling, and plumbing company.

I think just the drive and the enthusiasm and the servant attitude that myself and everybody that worked for me has — I think that made a difference, and so we took off pretty quickly.

We got married in Hawaii at the National Pest Management. I surprised her — she didn’t know we were getting married. I had everything arranged and I asked her on the beach and she said yes, and I had friends fly down, I had her kids flown down. She didn’t know it. He proposed to me on the beach in Maui and we got married three days later.

I had gotten to a point where I started thinking about, you know, what do I do next. At some point I got to find a way to not work as many hours and not, you know, take it home and take it on every vacation and all that kind of stuff. And so her son worked for us and we talked about having him take over and we introduced the idea to him, and he told us at that point that he was wanting to go out and start his own thing. And he went out and started a handyman remodeling company.

And so then it was like, okay, well now what do we do. I’d known Paul for, gosh, 15 years or so, maybe a little more. So I just reached out to him and he said, well, let’s just see what it’s worth. And I really learned a lot about my business during the valuation process with Paul and his team, and then going through the due diligence and everything for the sale. It was amazing what I learned about my business.

The guys we sold to have been really great, and doing work for them — I’m trying to help with the transition and anything they need me to do, I’m trying to be there for them. So I think it’s going to be great.

I get to see a lot more at home. I had no intentions of staying in the pest control industry — it was just a job. But this industry is just, it’s an awesome industry. Everybody is unbelievably willing to help. It’s been a great process. I think everyone made a good decision and look forward to the next adventure.