Plunkett’s Pest Control, Inc., based in Fridley, Minnesota, is proudly celebrating 100 years in business in 2015. Founded in 1915 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Plunkett’s Pest Control is a family-owned and operated corporation led by its third generation president, Stacy O’Reilly.
Stacy is the majority owner and President of Plunkett’s. She started working at the company in 2001 and assumed control of the business in 2003. Plunkett’s Pest Control was started by Tom Plunkett in 1915. After his death in 1923, Tom’s only employee, Bill O’Reilly, (Stacy’s grandfather), purchased the business. It has been owned and managed by the O’Reilly family ever since.
Stacy’s father took the lead in 1968 and accelerated Plunkett’s’ growth, taking it from a business with five technicians to one with more than 160 on staff, and securing its spot as the largest independent pest control company in Minnesota. That growth continues under Stacy’s leadership: In the twelve years she has run the company, revenues have increased two-fold to more than $32 million.
Plunkett’s delivers professional pest control services to more than 30,000 residential and commercial clients in 10 Upper Midwest states – Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa, Indiana, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Michigan, and Kansas.
Plunkett’s entire staff is knowledgeable, trustworthy, resourceful, and passionate about preventing and solving pest concerns for its clients. The company delivers a full range of structural pest control services including treatment for typical pests like rodents, ants, cockroaches, flies, spiders, and wasps to some of the more difficult to treat pests like box elder bugs, Asian lady beetles, mosquitoes, pest birds, termites, and bed bugs. Bed bugs are eradicated using high heat remediation. The company has one of the largest fleets of bed bug heat treatment generators in the industry. Plunkett’s also offers bed bug inspection services using both humans and a bed bug scent detection dog.
Plunkett’s performs its pest control services with one main ideology in mind: stop them before they get in. People might be surprised these days how limited the application of materials on the interior really is. The focus is on the exterior of the structure to make sure pests don’t enter in the first place. Plunkett’s uses less treatment materials now than at any other time in the company’s history.
Approximately 80% of revenues are generated from commercial clients (food distributors, meat packing plants, restaurants, hotels, apartment buildings, etc.) and approximately 20% from residential clients. The technicians and supervisors live in the markets they serve.
Plunkett’s received an SBA 504 loan in 2013 to purchase land and construct a 15,000 s.f. building in Fridley, Minnesota. Because of growth, this warehouse operations building was a much-needed second location for the business and is located one 1/2 block from the main office.
The new location enabled Plunkett’s to consolidate its fleet storage. It was leasing two additional properties in the Twin Cities to park its fleet of trucks, winterized spray trailers and its heat treatment equipment. A significant amount of employee time was being spent shuttling vehicles and trailers from the off-site storage to the existing facility. The new building also replaced warehouse space at the existing building, which was needed for office and training space. With the company’s growth, the current office space was no longer adequate to house all of the office staff. At the time of the loan application, the company employed just over 300 people; today they employ 350.
