Feature training | PPC88 September 2017
Lewis Westlake, from Servicing Member company Acute Pest Control, has passed his Level 2 Award in Pest Management qualification at the tender age of only 18 years old. Lewis had always wanted to work in pest management, however, having no formal way of getting into the sector, he had to do an apprenticeship in customer services and then do his Level 2 on the side. Now he’s passed both, so we invited him into the office to congratulate him in person.
Lewis started going out helping some of his older friends with some mole trapping when he was just 13. Initially, he liked being outside with his friends and using a quad bike. But by the time he left school he was completely hooked on the investigation and learning aspects of pest management. While his mates went off to be mechanics or start college, Lewis pursued a career in pest management – and hasn’t looked back since! Lewis is now looking at doing BPCA’s Insect Identification programme so he can start studying towards becoming a field biologist.
His boss, Shawn, invested a lot of his own time and effort getting Lewis qualified. He told us he enjoyed training someone himself as, “They don’t bring any bad habits with them” – noting how hard it is for someone to ‘unlearn’ bad practice.
Just think how much easier the whole process would have been with a formalised Apprenticeship Scheme in place!
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Scott Johnstone
Content and Communications Officer
15 September 2017 | PPC88