East Cooper Termite & Pest Solutions

Nov 1, 2021

Rockit Pest Acquires East Cooper Termite & Pest Solutions Rockit expands in South Carolina with acquisition of East Cooper, which serves customers in the greater Charleston area GREENVILLE, S.C. – Rockit Pest announced it has acquired East Cooper Termite & Pest Solutions, based in Mt. The company serves customers in the greater Charleston area, including Mount Pleasant, Awendaw, Wando, Isle of Palms, Sullivan’s Island, and Daniel Island communities. Christopher Bavosa, who founded the business 13 years ago, will continue to manage the business. Bavosa said, “I am excited to partner with Rockit Pest to help propel our company to the next stage of growth. Rockit’s focus on investing in our business and culture were key tenants of my decision to partner with their team. As I have done from our early days, I remain committed to providing exceptional customer service and a great experience for our employees. We’re looking forward to the road ahead with Rockit.” Patrick Settle, head of business development at Rockit, said, “We are thrilled to welcome Chris into the Rockit Pest family. His focus on customer service and employee engagement over the past 13 years has been key in building East Cooper. This partnership will further our strong presence in South Carolina as we work to build a super-regional pest control company.”   HOLMDEL, N.J. - To support WorkWave ’s growing vision of the future, the company will announce Tim Robinson as Chief Operating Officer of WorkWave. Robinson joins WorkWave from Real Green Systems, where he also served as chief operating officer, where he drove a customer-centric culture that he plans to continue within WorkWave. “I am honored to help lead the WorkWave team as we continue to charge through this next stage of growth, ensuring we are providing value to our customers and their businesses,” says Robinson. “The joining together of our industry-leading companies allows us to leverage our extensive industry knowledge and expertise to create the strongest possible partnerships with our customers.”  “When you acquire great companies, you get great people, and Tim Robinson is a perfect example,” says Giannetto. “He adds tremendous talent and experience to our leadership team, and I hope that his appointment will show our growing employee and customer base that we value and respect each of these great companies we’ve brought into the WorkWave family.”   DAVIE, Fla. -  A team of students from the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS) determined that less is more when it comes to just how many members of a subterranean termite colony must consume a chemical known as a chitin synthesis inhibitor (CSI) before the colony is eliminated. The study , published in the Journal of Pest Science, takes a closer look at how much bait it takes to eliminate a subterranean colony. As a prominent industry standard used in bait systems, CSI baits were first commercially used in the mid-1990s. Bait systems work as slow-acting agents. Current commercial formulations can provide a cost-effective and sustainable solution against potential damage from subterranean termites. “If termites feed on the bait, it can lead to colony elimination in a few months, as University of Florida researchers have demonstrated in the past three decades through dozens of keystone studies,” said Thomas Chouvenc, an assistant professor of urban entomology at the UF/IFAS Fort Lauderdale Research and Education Center (REC). “One of the remaining questions we had was, how many termites feeding on the bait does it take to reach colony elimination?” said Johnalyn Gordon, who recently graduated from UF/IFAS with a master’s degree. “From a previous study in our lab, we knew that it only takes a day of termites feeding on bait to reach a colony-wide lethal dose, but how many termites within the colony need to actively feed on the bait remained unclear,” added Joseph Velenovsky, a doctoral candidate at UF/IFAS Fort Lauderdale REC. Both students, under the supervision of Chouvenc, worked with 1.68 million termites at the Fort Lauderdale REC to answer this question. “They used 27 large colonies of termites that the team spent four years rearing in the lab, with approximately 62,500 termites in each of them,” explained Chouvenc. “It was quite a task to accomplish to show that food sharing behaviors of the bait were happening at the termite colony level, from just a fraction of foragers,” Chouvenc said. The efforts of the graduate student duo paid off. They were able to determine that it takes less than 5% of the entire termite population of a colony feeding on a bait station for a short duration to reach colony elimination. More critically, they demonstrated that it only takes 77 milligrams of a termite-specific pesticide to eliminate one million termites, confirming that CSI termite baits remain the most environmentally-friendly termite control technology available. “It was remarkable to observe that only a small portion of foragers feeding on bait was sufficient to kill the colonies,” Velenovsky said. “Even more remarkable, if a small number of workers feed on a tiny amount of bait for just a few days, the colony has already reached a ‘point of no return’ and is doomed to be eliminated within 90 days,” explained Gordon. The study concluded that even if subterranean termites can be seen in baits stations for up to three months, the colony is technically already in the process of dying within the first week, even after a small number of termites feed on it. ”If the termites feed on the bait, they are already dead, but they don’t know it yet,” concluded Gordon. ORLANDO, Fla. — Certus  has appointed Dave Bradford as its chief financial officer. Bradford brings over 20 years of experience in leadership and corporate finance to the Certus team, including previous roles at high-growth route-based service companies and pest control. He held leadership positions at Environmental Pest Service, Spirit Airlines, United Maritime Group and Tupperware Brands Corporation before joining Certus. He’s overseen the financial and operational aspects of over 150 acquisitions in his career. Bradford earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration with a concentration in finance from the University of Texas – Arlington and is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. Mike Givlin, Certus CEO and co-founder, said, “Dave’s demonstrated success in high-growth environments will help keep Certus on track as one of the fastest-growing pest control companies in the nation.” Bradford added, “My experience in leading companies within the service industry has shown me the importance of ensuring all roles within an organization are focused on servicing the customer to drive growth. I look forward to being a key part of the Certus team as we continue to exponentially grow our business.”