LOUISVILLE, Ky. — More than 200 pest control operators attended the Wonder Works Symposium, hosted by LESCO and John Deere Landscapes, where they were treated to Mark Myers’ latest creative educational endeavor.
The meeting converted a Holiday Inn ballroom into a factory, complete with backdrop and faux steel trusses, yellow hardhats tool belts and steel-toed shoes.
The attendees were addressed as applicants for hire at the Wonder Works Factory, and escorted by Foreman M.A. Niac (aka Mark Myers, a pest control specialist for LESCO). He led his prospective hires to each of his employed experts, where they learned more about specific aspects of pest control.
Myers had eight other people help him with the meeting’s registration, lighting, music and movies. Each member of the production had a script, and the day’s events were timed to the minute. He said it took him two months to write the script, build the sets and coordinate all the speakers.
“Everybody just loved it,” Myers said. “It was fun. I’ve always put on a good show.”
Myers’ previous meetings have included magic acts with live rats and mice, shooting flames, industrial smoke machines, and a hardhat — ahem, a time machine — that he wired with clocks and flashing lights. He has acted as a traveling medicine salesman, a 300 year-old PCO, and once convinced the head of the West Virginia Pest Control Association to dress up in a rented cockroach costume.
He said his theatrical productions have more staying power than traditional-format meetings.
“They remember that,” Myers said. “I’ve sat through so many boring lectures. I’ll never put on a boring lecture. I guess I’m gifted because I’ve got an imagination that’s probably off the scale.”
Speakers at the meeting included: Dr. Chris Christensen, Urban Insect Solutions; Dr. Janet Kintz-Early Nisus; Dr. Cisse Spragins, Rockwell Labs Ltd; Todd Brown, BASF; Loren Cunnington, Zoecon; Arnold Ramsey, FMC; and Travis Anderson, Bell Laboratories.
Between speakers, Myers answered scripted questions that led into the next expert’s topic: such as ants, termites, occasional invaders, mosquitoes.
In all, 240 people from 90 companies in Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky and Ohio, converged on Louisville for the meeting.