Class of 2018
Harvey Goldglantz, pest management industry consultant and Class of 2018 Pest Management Professional (PMP) Hall of Fame inductee, does not hesitate to sing the praises of the pest management industry.
“It is a great industry,” he says. “I dedicated myself to lifting up the industry through knowledge, professionalism and education.”
For decades, Goldglantz used his positions with thePennsylvania Pest Management Association (PPMA) and the National Pest Management Association (NPMA), as well as his work as consultant, author, speaker and PMP columnist to drive home this point.
He was just a teenager when he entered the business in 1963, working in nearly every capacity for a distant cousin’s Philadelphia, Pa.-based company. He took the job to pay the bills and support himself and his younger brother after his mother and father died. Fortunately, Goldglantz excelled at sales, particularly cold calls. He was even better at marketing pest control services, a skill that helped shape his career.
After about a year of pest control work, he took a chance on a daring idea he thought would increase business. It worked, and a week later he left his cousin’s company and launched Philadelphia Exterminating Co. Two weeks later, his own company was so successful he hired seven men to work for him part time. He used his earnings to put himself through college, graduating cum laude with a communications/marketing degree from Temple University in 1971.
“I started the business when I was young, but by the time I was 21, I was sort of at a crisis point in my life,” he says. “I had a lot of opportunities when I came out of school.”
By then, Goldglantz was considering other career options while still running his pest control business. They included marketing and consulting after working as assistant to the president of a multi-million-dollar company and helping with its expansion — and show business. He landed a recording contract when he was a teenager, performed in Off Broadway shows, and even tried out for a spot on “Saturday Night Live.”
“My pest control business was doing so well that eventually I decided I might as well stay in the business,” Goldglantz says. “I was doing too many things, and I had to stay focused.”
Of great concern was his fiancée Gayle, who was diagnosed with end-stage renal disease one week before their wedding day. Because her kidneys were failing, she would require dialysis. Nothing would deter them from marrying, however. Gayle survived four kidney transplants — her third was the world’s first organ transplant from a living donor with a different blood type — but succumbed to cancer one day shy of their 40th wedding anniversary in 2011. He married his second wife, Roberta, in 2015.
Association work
In the early 1980s, while running his successful pest management business in Elkins Park, Pa., he got involved in the PPMA. “Back then, the industry was not exactly focused on building image or professionalism,” Goldglantz recalls.
Too often, he adds, pest control operators, as they were known back then, were looked upon as spray jockeys — a negative image he worked hard to change. He frequently spoke about the importance of enhancing and protecting the industry’s image. He was elected president of the PPMA twice, served on and chaired most of its committees, and was editor and publisher of its newsletter for more than 15 years. For his service to the organization, he was honored with its Stanley G. Green Man of the Year Award and its Pioneer Award.
In no time, his work with the PPMA led to regular stints with the NPMA. Nisus Corp.’s Greg Bauman, a fellow PMP Hall of Famer (Class of 2013) and the NPMA’s then-manager of government affairs, invited him to speak as part of a panel discussion on public relations at the NPMA’s annual convention. Speaking gigs for the NPMA followed, and in 1992, a consulting career was launched.
“That’s how it all started, with the NPMA,” Goldglantz explains. “People started coming up and asking me for my business cards.”
His fellow PMPs approached him for ways to boost their business, and he was happy to share his expertise.
“I’ve taken a lot of companies from a couple hundred thousand dollars a year to multi-million dollars a year,” he says. “I work with them not only as a marketing consultant, but as a business consultant to look for avenues of profitability.”
Since selling his pest control company in 2005, Goldglantz has focused on his consulting business, Pest Control Marketing Co., in Warminster, Pa. His clients have included many past presidents of state associations and the NPMA.
He provides advice on sales, marketing, advertising, technical and customer service, operations, and human resources. Many clients rely on his years of expertise to increase sales or expand.
“What I get out of consulting, other than making a living, is that it gives me a great deal of satisfaction to help my clients build their businesses,” Goldglantz says. “I knew from very early on that my love was consulting, and helping everybody move their businesses forward.”
His favorite part about the pest control business is the relationships he has cultivated over the years, and the many friends he has made.
“I do love the relationships, and I’ve been blessed to have them,” he says. “The industry has been wonderful to me.”