Data Digging the PCT Top 100 List

I'm a big fan of PCT -- I imagine most followers of the pest control industry are too. But by far my favorite issue of the year is the PCT Top 100 list. This list is a great way for people interested in data (like me) to quantify what is happening in the industry. This year I asked Katherine Matthews, ESA's database manager, to review the list and compare it to our list of ACEs.  She found some interesting things that I thought I wanted to share with our list of certified professionals.

First, some simple facts:

• We don't have a company of record for all of our ACEs (we don't require that in our database), so while most of our ACEs do in fact work for a professional organization, not all of them have shared with us what firm that is. All of the statistics below bear this fact in mind.
• The ACE totals we used are current as of June 30, 2014, which means a total of 772 ACEs.
• For those that we do have a company listed, just over 42% work for one of the top 100 firms.
• 59% of our ACEs are in primarily "residential work firms", 40% work for companies that do more commercial work, and about 1% are in companies that have an even split between residential and commercial.
• 90% of our ACEs work for companies where general pest control is the focus and the remaining 10% do primarily termite work.

Year Started By Firm:

When we look at the year our current ACEs, listed by employer we can see when the top 10 firms really started to adopt ACE as a business tool. Rollins hit a high point in 2012 when 25 of their people joined the ranks of our current ACEs. Recently Clark Pest Control has begun to put more people through the program with 13 of our current ACEs joining in 2013. Wil-Kil and American Pest Control are tied for third-most ACEs in a year with 11 each in 2009 and 2013 respectively.

Total Counts By Firm:

Rollins/Orkin (PCT #1) far and away has the most number of current ACEs with 69. Terminix (PCT #2) is in second with 26 (for the purposes of this analysis we joined Terminix International and Terminix Service together, as we don't differentiate between the two in our database). Clark Pest Control (PCT #10) is in third for number of total ACEs on staff (recall that they didn't start to get serious about the ACE program until 2013!). Ecolab (PCT #4) is next with 19 ACEs. Click on the chart to the right to see the rest of the numbers. Western Exterminator Company of course was acquired by Rentokil North America in October 2012, so our Western folks are listed under Rentokil.

Best Months to Test?

These next facts don't really correlate to the PCT list, but since we were doing data analysis anyhow, it just seemed like a good idea to dig a little deeper. When we reviewed the list of our current ACEs and the month in which they passed their exams, we can see that March and November seem to be the months when most people pass their tests. But if you want to maximize your score, then November and February seem to be your best bet. What that says to me is that it may be prudent to schedule your ACE for a less-busy time of year (if such a thing exists!).

Which States Lead The Pack?

In April of last year on this blog we looked at the number of ACEs by state. At that time Florida was #1 and Texas was #2. As you can see by the chart at the right, little has changed. But a few of the states that were previously "ACE-less" now have them. Of the 50 states the only ones that don't have any ACEs are Alaska, Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, and South Dakota.

Rental Property Opportunities

Pests in rental properties, whether low income or not, is a hot topic in the news. Due to high turnover and other factors, rental properties often create a good marketing opportunity for PMPs. Perhaps that is why we see that our ACEs are often more prevalent in states with high numbers of rental properties. A number of states that have high numbers of renters do not yet have high numbers of ACEs (Illinois, Ohio, and New York in particular). That will change in the coming months, I'm sure.

What kinds of research would you like to see regarding certification. Email us and let us know.