Terry Clark This is Me

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1. 1. controltermite.armydads.net

   controltermite.armydads.net/co - [Cached]

   Published on: 4/1/2008   Last Visited: 6/28/2008

   Termite finder a gas: Lodi man patents ... Terry Clark, the 40-year-old vice president of Clark Pest Control in Lodi, ...

2. 2. DriveCam Company Press Release: Clark Pest Control Selects DriveCam's Driving Feedback System

   www.drivecam.com/drive-cam/new - [Cached]

   Published on: 6/16/2006   Last Visited: 5/10/2008

   "Safety is our primary concern, keeping both our drivers and the public safe," said Terry Clark, president of Clark Pest Control.

3. 3. www.weneedyou.com

   www.weneedyou.com/Services.asp - [Cached]

   Published on: 10/16/2004   Last Visited: 3/11/2007

   [PCT Leadership Winner] Terry Clark
   
   Everyone is busy.It's a fact of life.In fact, some of us are so busy that we make up excuses so that we don't have to do something we don't like.Not Terry Clark.Clark, 41, serves as vice president of Clark Pest Control, Lodi, Calif., and he oversees the wood-destroying organism division of Clark Pest Control, which includes more than 50 inspectors.You want to talk about busy?Clark also manages the acquisitions and sales of a fleet of 880 service vehicles and personally inspects every vehicle annually.
   
   "Terry Clark gets under every one of Clark's 800 vehicles," said Bob Dold Jr., director of operations, Rose Exterminator, Chicago.
   ...
   Clark doesn't mind the extra work."Our best and biggest public relations are our vehicles," he said."It hurts me when I see a technician from another pest control company with a stained shirt, blowing through red lights or driving a leaking truck."
   
   Those negative qualities are something you'll never see from a Clark Pest Control technician if Terry Clark has anything to do about it.
   
   CLARK HISTORY.There's a long history of pest control running through the Clark family tree.Terry Clark's father, Charlie, founded Clark Pest Control in 1950.
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   Terry's mother, Shirlene, was born in Oklahoma. (Terry's uncle and Charlie's older brother, Jim Clark, also was a PCT/Syngenta Leadership winner.) Terry is the youngest of their three sons. (His two older brothers are Jeffrey and Joe.)
   ...
   It soon became clear to Clark that he should open his own business.
   
   "My father worked for Charlie Delk and he realized his sister was having a pretty good living so he decided to go into the business himself," Terry said.
   ...
   Not wanting to compete with his family, Clark left the Fresno area and opened his first office in Stockton â€" the office that started Clark Pest Control as it is today.
   
   "My dad taught me that there's no replacement for hard work," Terry said."All the education, all the technical schools, unless you're out there in the field, you don't know what's going on.That was one thing dad impressed on me from a young age."
   
   Like many in the pest control industry, Terry grew up working at his father's pest control firm.At age 15 he was working on a termite crew during the day and sweeping up offices at night.But that experience paid major dividends down the road as Terry came up through the company's ranks.
   
   "My dad said that if you don't know what someone else is doing, you don't know if they're lying to you," Terry said."You don't know if they're taking too much time on that job unless you've done it yourself."
   
   And the elder Clark wasn't about to let his sons rise through the ranks without some hard work along the way."My dad told us if we're going to do this job it's going to be a lot of hard work but there will be a payoff at the end," Terry said."My dad told us you're going to work twice as hard as anyone else and get half as much pay."
   
   "Terry and Joe are the sons and legacy of Charlie Clark.
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   As a teenager, Terry Clark worked at several jobs before deciding his path, he said."I worked for the Catholic Church at a summer camp for the developmentally disabled," Clark said, "and within six years I rose up to the position of camp director, responsible for over 120 people."Clark tried his hand as auto mechanic but he "found it frustrating to fix cars only to have the owner take it home to break them again."He also managed a phone sales operation before deciding to give it all up for pest control full time."I started on the termite crew and worked my way through every position from janitor to branch manager," he said.
   
   Today, Terry and his brother Joe work hand in hand in running the business.Joe, who's also a vice president at the company, runs the general pest control division."He focuses on pest control because that's what he likes," Terry says, but he has a different calling."I truly enjoy dealing with the termite side, dealing with the most important thing in someone's life at the most critical time in their life, when they're selling."
   
   "FAMILY" BUSINESS.While the "family" atmosphere is difficult to maintain in such a large company, the Clark brothers try to do so."We found that the farther away from our home base the more difficult it becomes to maintain the right atmosphere," Clark said.The company covers only Northern California and there's not more than two or three hours from office to office."We try to see our managers once or twice a month.We try to get out into the branches to make sure everyone's happy," he said.
   
   To keep everyone happy, Clark says he overpays people so they don't leave.He gives them the independence to develop their own business (the branch offices)."We use that mantra right down to the route technician," Clark said.
   ...
   "The real leaders of companies are out there with the troops â€" the route supervisors are out there working daily with the technicians," Clark said.
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   That "stellar reputation" has led to some exciting opportunities for Terry through the National Pest Management Association."One of the best days of my life, and certainly the best day of my career, was the day I got the phone call saying that I had been nominated for the board of directors for NPMA," he said.
   ...
   Clark had, perhaps, one reservation.He said that his father had been president of the California Structural Pest Control Board for eight years and that's part of the reason the company didn't grow during that period."He was so involved in the day-to-day dealings with the Structural Pest Control Board of the state that it really cut into his time to grow the company," Terry said."When he got out of that we were really able to blossom.
   
   "I learned that lesson upfront that you can't focus on someone else's issues so much that it hurts yourself," he continued."But if you can give a little time to help the industry and help others and it doesn't hurt you then you might as well.
   
   "The ability to go to National and be able to give some fresh ideas because I was a new face on the scene it was appealing to me," he said.
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   "Terry Clark is a very special individual," said Judy Dold, owner, Rose Exterminator, Chicago, Ill. Dold worked with Clark on NPMA's board of directors.
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   "Terry Clark is a very special individual," said Judy Dold, owner, Rose Exterminator, Chicago, Ill. Dold worked with Clark on NPMA's board of directors.
   ...
   It will take the industry working together to combat threats facing it, according to Terry Clark.Like many in pest management, he says the biggest challenge to the future of the industry are environmental concerns."The materials have changed but the mentality is that at best (the pest management industry) is a necessary evil.I don't want to be that.I want to be the pest prevention guy," Clark said.
   
   Working in a state as environmentally volatile as California, Clark has particular challenges to face."I think it has a lot to do with all of the colleges we have in the area â€" we have very progressive-thinking people," he said."We have issues like IPM in schools before it hits the rest of the nation.If it starts in California or New York it will end up being in the rest of the nation."
   
   Clark doesn't see the industry as being anti-environment."We are the first environmentalists.If it weren't for pest management companies properly managing pesticides and other material they apply, the average homeowner would have no idea what to do," he said."They'd be dumping things down the drain.It really incenses me that they think we're irresponsible cowboys doing what's bad for the environment when really what we're doing is protecting health and property and helping to put food on plates."
   
   THE FUTURE.In 1996, Clark married his wife, Paulette (Toni) Clark.
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   "There's a lot of mutual respect that Terry has earned."
   
   Bob Dold agrees that Terry Clark has a lot to offer the industry.
   ...
   "I think Terry has an uncompromising zest for excellence," Dold said.
   ...
   "Terry is ahead of his time and on the cutting edge for what the industry is doing. (The industry) oftentimes looks at something conventionally but Terry will take a very different approach.We may say there's one way to skin a cat, but Terry says there are six.NPMA has tapped Terry Clark on a couple of things but he's still a huge untapped resource as to what else he has to give."
   
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   Valuable Advice That is Freely Given
   
   Having seen Clark Pest Control grow from $3 million a year to more than $80 million gives Terry Clark