A-Active Building Project, Part 4: One Year Later

Editor’s note: One year ago PCT Online followed Kevin Kordek, president of A-Active Termite and Pest Control, Virginia Beach, Va., as he built his company’s headquarters — a new 7,000-square-foot steel building. Kevin and wife Mary Beth took a very hands-on approach to this project, working with an architect to customize the design and providing the builders with input throughout the process. It’s been a year since A-Active moved into its new headquarters and PCT Online recently caught up with Kordek. Find out how Kordek and his employees have benefited from the new building and what future enhancements and expansions A-Active is planning.

What we expected and what we’ve seen is a more organized procedure for checking in, in the morning. In our building we were too spread out and that did not allow for the physical flow of activity. The new building has made the check-in procedure more efficient. The time in the morning when technicians pull their trucks into the garage for maintenance work, cleaning and paper work has been reduced from 15 minutes to 5 minutes. It’s not unusual for fellow technicians to pitch in and help other each other out with cleaning or maintenance of trucks.

Those were benefits we expected to see. A benefit we’ve seen - that can’t be measured in dollars and cents - is increased morale. By not having to wait around as long in the morning I think are technicians are happier. I think they have more pride coming to work at a new building. I think they like to have an area where they can socialize with one another.

We have a new conference/training room with new tables and new chairs. This has been good for our “Share the Vision” meetings as well as (general) training meetings. It’s enhanced our ability to train and review operations. Like the old saying goes “the mind can only absorb what the butt can endure.”

There are a lot of other benefits. Simply, the brightness of the building is a positive. Our technicians have to wear “booties” (shoe covers) into customers’ homes. Now they are wearing them into the office. They never used to take this level of pride in their workplace before, but they do now.

I think it’s helped our perception in the community. It is more consistent with the things A-Active stands for. We made a lot of improvements to the old building to keep it nice, but we were renting it, so we did not make any capital improvements to it. The way this building is designed, laid out, landscaped and maintained is more consistent with the quality image the customers see of A-Active in field. Now our physical environment matches the perception.

I recently met with our agent who provides us property and casualty insurance. He had given me a quote based on our previous building and his past experience with pest control companies. I told him to stop out and visit us. When he got out here his “jaw dropped” and he apologized to me. He said the insurance industry has a really bad stereotype of pest control companies. He was impressed with our set up and with how clean and organized are warehouse is. We have all our chemicals in a 4 by 8 enclosure and another area where we keep our Brite Idea (holiday lights) and separate storage for (bait stations). We also have fire extinguishers and fire suppression materials on site. Before he left he gave me a reduction in our premium. This will save us thousands of dollars per year.

What’s next for A-Active? There is still room on our property for expansion and our plan is to add a separate free-standing 6,000 square foot structure. In addition, we want to expand into new markets. Our plan is to build a new structure, occupy a portion of it and then lease out the rest. This will help in offsetting the expenses of opening a new location.