Ed Wahlbeck was not your typical "Bug Guy." He loved interacting with his customers and truly considered many of them his close friends. I would ask him at the start of each day, "So dad, who are we treating today?" Most people would look down at their schedule and read names off a list. But he always knew who he was visiting each day. I usually would recognize one or two of the group of names. Naturally, I would ask him to help me recall the other names on our schedule- this is when the game would get fun. Every day, without failure, he would say something like, "Come on, you know this one. She's the widow with her son, John, in the military. Her other son is going to school to become a CPA in Virginia."  I always wondered how my dad could retain so much knowledge about our customers. As I got older, I began to realize the hidden ingredient- that he truly cared about these customers to learn so much about them.

He began working in the pest control industry in the early 1980's. He started with Arab Termite and Pest Control and than went on to work for Sears Termite and Pest Control. Sears was the largest Pest Control company in the county at the time. It was at Sears that he and his team piloted the "once a year pest control" service. It was an immediate success and is now the most effective pest control approach available today. He was a trainer of this new technique with Sears until 1990 when he left to start his own company. With a loan from his father-in-law, he started what is now known as Wahlbeck Pest Control. Within three months, he had already found enough success to pay his father-in-law back ten times over. He treated each customer as friends. You'd be hard-pressed to ever find a more honest, compassionate and hardworking man in the pest control industry. Using "word of mouth" for 99% of his advertising, his business grew to around 2000 customers at the time of his death in 2010.

Between his wake and funeral, there were well over a thousand people that came to say goodbye to Ed Wahlbeck. Half of which were Wahlbeck Pest Control customers. Those who knew Ed would agree that he was a man worth honoring in a way that his memory will never be forgotten. Churches honor those they deem worthy by making saints. In America, we like to honor our heroes by putting their images on coins and bills, carving their portraits on the sides of mountains and naming streets after them. Well, you will probably never see his likeness on a shiny coin buried in your wallet nor on the side of a mountain. He most likely won’t be honored with a street name. Though Ed is gone, his business still remains. It is in the hands of those who loved him and we have made it our mission to continue to build upon the legacy he created. You will see his likeness in how we treat our customers and how we our dedicated to providing the best service in the industry. Ed Wahlbeck proved that you can build a successful company with hard work, honesty, compassion and fairness as the foundation. What better way to honor his legacy than to prove these values to be true for generations to come.

- Written by Carl Wahlbeck, son of Ed; Manager and “Bug Guy” for Wahlbeck Pest Control.