Redd Named Pest Control Pro of Year: Katrina, Camille Cited
By Jimmie Bell, The Sun Herald, Biloxi, Miss.
Jan. 29–The national pest control industry’s Pest Control Technology Magazine of Cleveland, Ohio, has chosen Gordon Redd Jr. as its 23rd annual Professional of the Year.
The publication cited Redd as a “man who lives by his faith, has faced devastation and disaster with great optimism and whose character is evident in the community he so eagerly serves.”
The article points out that the Redd family enterprise “has survived two of the most devastating hurricanes in our nation’s history — Camille in 1969 and Katrina in 2005.”
Redd told PCT Magazine, “I didn’t think I would see another storm comparable to Camille in my lifetime — I was wrong.”
Redd was 17 years old when Camille ravaged the Coast. He recalled that the powerful storm devastated his father’s Redd Pest Solutions entire trade area.
Redd has followed in the footsteps of an enterprising Mississippi family. In 1952, his uncle J.C. and his father incorporated Redd Pest Control and built up a business that reached across the Mississippi and Alabama coasts.
Redd Sr. bought the coastal interests of his brother in 1970 and became sole owner of Redd Pest Control of Gulfport. The second generation of the family, Gordon Jr. and brother Kenny, became active in its growth and development and by 1988 had purchased the operation from their father. In 2004 they renamed their business Redd Pest Solutions, with headquarters on U.S. 49 near Airport Road in Gulfport.
The hurricanes have taught the Redds that, as Gordon Jr. tells it, “Anything is possible.” He recalls Camille’s onslaught which “destroyed half of the family business overnight. There was an emptiness that next morning that defies description.”
It was a similar scenario that was about to greet his staff when they returned to work after Hurricane Katrina. However, Gordon arrived first and at once saw several things that needed to be changed in a hurry to offset the despair that he knew his employees would experience.
So Redd swept off the parking lot, cleaned up the front of the building and removed all the old carpeting. “I wanted things to look as normal for them as possible,” he said. “I even put down doormats.”
After the employees arrived, Redd said, “I gave them a two-hour pep talk, explained all the possible opportunities there were for the business, and assured them they would all remain on the payroll.
“I nearly choked on the cloud of dust our employees created as they headed back to work,” he added. And the business has been in high gear ever since.
The national industry honor is not the only accolade Redd received for 2005. Earlier in the year he was honored as a Small Business Executive of the Year by the Mississippi Coast Chamber of Commerce.
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Copyright (c) 2006, The Sun Herald, Biloxi, Miss.
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