PPC115 | Your Association

David Cross from BPCA member company Rentokil was awarded a BPCA Life membership at our annual member meeting at PestEx. David has contributed to many committees and industry groups and has been instrumental in several pest management qualifications. We met him to learn more about his career and volunteer work. 

“I went to PestEx a couple of weeks ago, and you can feel the passion in that room.”

PPC David, how did you get into pest control in the first place?

DC I was doing a degree in ecology and animal behaviour at Manchester, and I chose to do my final year project on the harbouring behaviour of the American cockroach.

Other people were doing exciting topics like going off into the Peak District and observing red deer behaviour, while I was in a dark room looking at cockroaches and seeing if I could get more cockroaches into a harbourage that had previously been occupied by other cockroaches.

Later I got a job with the Forestry Commission. That was proper pest control because we were looking at the great spruce bark beetle invading the Welsh Marches. 

PPC That’s a mouthful – great spruce bark beetle. Sounds like an interesting project though.

DC It is a mouthful! They were an import from Norway, decimating the Forestry Commission plots. We had to try to control them. That project went on for about three years, but all of the time, I was thinking more about getting into the public health aspects of pest control.

I applied for some jobs within Rentokil, and was eventually taken on in around 1988, as a pest control technician in one of the Birmingham branches, which was fantastic. 

There was a pack of cards with the names of all your customers, how many times a year you had to visit them, and what pest they were on contract for - nothing digital. And then, twice a day, I had to find an old payphone to find out if there had been any callouts for me.

I eventually moved from Birmingham to Manchester as a field biologist and loved that job.

PPC You got to see many different types of pest control in action?

DC Absolutely. When I worked for the Birmingham branch, I was responsible for city centre pest control and rural pest control on farms in the West Midlands.

It was also the time when behavioural resistance in mice was becoming known. You couldn’t get mice to eat bait or go into bait boxes. We constantly experimented to get them to feed on anticoagulants, but we also heavily trapped them and used glue boards. Getting on top of the mice in the old Bull Ring in Birmingham was a lot of work.

PPC Why did you love being a field biologist so much? 

DC I looked after two big flour mills in Manchester and Trafford Park and visited those every week. We looked after big food and pharmaceutical manufacturers.

We had lots of stored product insect pest activity. This started to interest me because it’s not just about spraying – it’s about managing a site.

It’s all proper integrated pest management, where you sit down with the site’s management team and discuss hygiene and proofing issues. We’re educating people at the site to recognise pests, why everyone has a role to play in pest management and what they can do to prevent pests.

PPC Is that where your love of education came from? 

DC It started when we were doing pest awareness training for our customers, but I was also getting into training technicians. New starters would come out, and I’d show them around the site, explaining what we do and why we do it. It was hands-on practical training for those guys. 

Rentokil is a very innovative organisation, so whenever we got a new control solution or monitoring device, it was the field biologist’s job to stand up in front of the technicians and explain what it is, how it works, and all the rest of it. 

I was a field biologist for around seven years, then joined another company called Igrox, which was very much into fumigation. At the time, they looked after about 65% of all the flour mills in the UK.

PPC Have you seen a lot of changes over the years in terms of what’s expected for pest professionals to know to do their jobs?

DC With Rentokil training, there’s a field aspect, a classroom aspect, and then a knowledge check at the end. You know a technician has the knowledge and practical skills to work independently. That is great for a large to medium-sized business, but some sole traders don’t have the luxury of getting that level of support in their initial training.

It became more apparent when I started getting involved in BPCA meetings. There was a time when the BPCA diploma existed, and at the same time, the Royal Society of Health (now the Royal Society for Public Health – RSPH) had a qualification. This was pretty much for the council type of pest control, whereas the BPCA qualification was favoured by private sector pest controllers.

That’s when I started getting involved in meetings to discuss how to merge those qualifications. We would discuss what the curriculum would look like, and that’s when we began to develop the Level 2 and Level 3 qualifications in pest management.

Our work meant that there was a single qualification available offered by an official awarding body subject to Ofqual scrutiny – in other words, a nationally recognised qualification. It was a proper qualification awarded by RSPH.

“You can sit down and pass the exam, but are you a well-rounded pest controller when you actually go out after that qualification? Becoming good at your job is all about knowledge, skills and behaviours.”

PPC You’ve volunteered extensively with BPCA, especially in pest control education. When you started, did you think you’d end up creating the qualifications for a whole sector? 

DC  No, not at all. When I started with BPCA, it was the Servicing Committee meetings, and again, they were nothing like what they are now. Sometimes, you would be lucky if four or five people attended!

There wasn’t that level of commitment and enthusiasm in those days that there is now. I’ll take that back –  there was an awful lot of enthusiasm, but it was just a small number of people that attended on a regular basis, and something so massive came out of it.

PPC How did your small group start pulling together something like the RSPH/BPCA Level 2 Award?

DC We started off with these two streams that seemed to be going off in different directions, so it felt important to bring them all together.

A National Occupational Standard for pest control did exist but it was not widely known and the two sectors had not come together and said ”right, this is what a pest controller needs to know to be able to go out and do the job.“ BPCA recognised it, and together we got it done.

While the qualification is established now, it also has to evolve. I still attend meetings - they’re correct that it’s a lot of book learning. There’s a lot to know! 

You can sit down and pass the exam, but are you a well-rounded pest controller when you actually go out after that qualification? Becoming good at your job is all about knowledge, skills and behaviours. 

If you’re in a big organisation like Rentokil, you’ve got the luxury of honing your skills while being supervised by somebody else. Unfortunately, a lot of the smaller companies can’t do that. You can get the knowledge, but then you have to develop your skills by yourself in the field. 

PPC Much of that work continues today as part of your work in the BPCA Professional Standards Committee. 

DC Yes, exactly. I’m also involved in CEPA, and I’m starting to see the same discussions in European countries as in the UK.

PPC Are you still on the RSPH advisory panel?

DC Not any more, no. I offer my time outside of Rentokil as an examiner for the level 2, level 3 and fumigation qualifications. I attend examiner meetings focusing primarily on making sure that there is consistency between examiners but also on the validity of current questions based on the changing landscape within our industry.

It’s a tough qualification to get, and there are often debates about whether it should be a level 2 or 3. I don’t really mind what number it is, as long as it covers what a technician needs to know to be able to work independently.

PPC Ramps is another organisation you continue to be a large part of, right?

DC I’m involved in the Register of Metal Phosphide Standards (Ramps UK), which we developed around 2000 when I worked for Igrox. It’s still going now, although it’s not as urgent as it was because when we were first developing it, there were changes in legislation.

So, we had to develop two qualifications: one for vertebrate control and one for invertebrate control. But then we’ve also got a load of fumigators out there who had already been through the BPCA Diploma in Fumigation. 

The BPCA Diploma in Fumigation was a really good qualification with many practical aspects, which are needed when dealing with something as harmful as a fumigant! 

Unfortunately, it was not an accredited qualification because it was awarded by the BPCA (not an awarding body). Then, we had to have long and complex conversations with the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) to get them to accept the BPCA qualification, despite it not being awarded by an awarding body. 

We managed to get the fumigation industry recognised as qualified, so that was a tough but necessary time!

PPC Your help producing courses and volunteering with various industry groups earned you a BPCA life membership. How did you feel when you found out you’d been nominated?

DC I was a bit gobsmacked. I didn’t know why, but I was. I recognise this is the pinnacle BPCA award and I’m really proud of that.

If you’re passionate about the industry, you’ve got to get involved. Otherwise, nothing will change – or if there are changes, you might not like them! I went to PestEx a couple of weeks ago, and you can feel the passion in that room.

Get yourself onto a committee and speak up. You’ll meet some fantastic people, and you’ll have contributed to the advancement and development of the industry.