Bugs B Gone featured in Bayer Pest Management Insights 
by Curt Harler

Just about every pest management professional's fondest dreams are realized in the name of the Columbus, Mississippi firm call Bugs-B-Gone.  It is also why the average homeowner hires a professional in the first place....so the bugs are gone.  "We get calls from people who tell us, 'we want our bugs to be gone,'" laughs Everett Pennington, owner of Bugs-B-Gone.  "Our reply is always the same: Give us the go-ahead and we'll make those bugs be gone!"

People relate to the name. "Bugs-B-Gone has been a catchy little name for us and we've done well with it," he says.  Originally Pennington had wanted to use a name like Bugs-R-Us. Bug a competitor registered the name.  Although the competitor never used it for their pest management business, it kept Pennington from using it.

"The three of us who started the company sat down and threw out a lot of ideas.  This is what we came up and Bugs-B-Gone is what it has been ever since," Pennington recalls.

Pennington has a lot of practice as a PMP.  He started Bugs-B-Gone at the relatively late age of 57. He was the former manager for the Redd Pest Control branch in Columbus, Mississippi, until the company was sold to Orkin.  "I had gone to work for Redd in 1965 as a service technician," Pennington says.  Over the course of 34 years he worked his way up to regional manager.  When the company was sol, he went into business for himself.  "I brought my long-time secretary, service supervisor, and two technicians with me," he says.  Waymon Byars and Daphne Palmer have been with him since the beginning, and both have ownership in the company.  Byars and Palmer and Pennington are the team that came up with the name.  In February 2000 they started work with two trucks.  Today, the Bugs-B-Gone fleet consists of 14 service vehicles.  

Bugs-B-Gone hit $1 million in revenue last year.  Their business mix is 60 percent residential and 40 percent commercial.  Pennington is a big proponent of product training for his employees and taking advantage of manufacturer support to help make the training stick.  "We do a complete line of pest and termite service," Pennington say, noting that they do a large business with fire ants and general pests like ants and roaches.  Termite management, always with Premise®, is a big seller.  Pennington says that, in the eight years he has been in business he has never had a call for re-treatment for termites with Premise®.  I wouldn't use anything different," Pennington says, "It helps our Bugs-B-Gone."