PCOs Travel to Minneapolis for PCT Stored Product Pest Seminar

MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. — About 20 pest management and quality assurance professionals attended a facility tour of Plunkett’s Pest Control Wednesday as the PCT Stored Product Pest Seminar began in Minneapolis.

PCT’s three-day conference started with a tour of Plunkett’s in Fridley, Minn. Stacy O’Reilly, Plunkett’s owner and president, welcomed visitors to tour the $15 million company’s only office. The primarily commercial company services nine states and employs 190.

Jay Bruesch, Plunkett’s technical director, showed PCT’s visitors all aspects of how the company is operated, from client services to its training facilities to its product warehouse.

“Every phone number in every Yellow Pages from North Dakota to Illinois rings here,” Bruesch said of the company’s client services department. The department fields 300 calls a day in the winter and more than 600 calls a day in the summer.

Bruesch ended the tour with a discussion of how Plunkett’s handles its stored product pest accounts. He said the company trains its technicians how to work with customers that don’t understand the best way to handle pest situations. “We tell them their money is better spent on sanitation than on fumigation,” Bruesch said.

Following the facility tour, the seminar’s educational sessions began with presentations by Dr. Linda Mason from Purdue University; Al St. Cyr from AIB; and a panel discussion about what customers want from their pest management partners.

The PCT Stored Product Pest Seminar continues Thursday and Friday with a variety of presentations about heat treatments, fumigation treatments, IGRs, pheromones, pest protection in organic facilities and more.

The title sponsors of the Stored Product Pest Seminar are Dow AgroSciences and TempAir. Associate sponsors include MGK, Trece and Zoecon Professional Products.

Stay tuned to PCTonline.com and the January issue of PCT magazine for further details about the conference.