God Works Through Mysterious Bugs

Words and Image by Terrell Manasco And on the sixth day, God created bugs. Mysterious and pesky He created them.Roaches. Termites. Brown recluses.While some small boys growing up in Douglasville, Georgia were catching bugs and insects and keeping them in jars, young Keith Chandler was exterminating them. "My dad started doing pest control as a part-time job," he recalls. "When I was six years old, I used to ride around with him and we'd spray restaurants and stores at night."In 1970, Keith's dad and brother started a pest control business, Chandler Exterminators, but by this time, Keith was ready to say goodbye to bugs. "Every summer, every time school was out, that's all I did. I used to say all the time, 'I can't wait to get out of high school so I don't have to do this stuff any more.' I'll be sixty in March and I'm still doing it," he laughs.Despite his plans to get out of the business, Keith was later hired by a national pest control company. In 1993 he was given a job promotion and moved to Alabama. He was now earning a good living and seemingly had the world on a string. Then the job ended unexpectedly, thrusting Keith and his family on hard times. "I really didn't want to go back to Douglasville," he says. "I managed a couple of small companies and then worked for another company, almost starving to death."Virtually broke with no hope in sight, Keith prayed for a miracle. Before long a solution appeared. "My brother said, 'If you will find another [pest control] company I will help you buy it so you can stay in Alabama'," Keith says. He began looking for an opportunity and in 1998 he found it in Jasper. The owner had passed away and left the business to his daughter and her husband. The couple divorced and the business landed back in the hands of a woman in Priceville. "I gave her a call on a Saturday afternoon and asked her if she had a business for sale," Keith explains. "She said she did, and I asked her how much she wanted for it. She said, 'If you'll come get it, I'll give it to you'." Initially Keith was a bit suspicious of her motives for giving it away, but she reassured him there was nothing to be concerned about. "I told her I usually don't work on Sunday but I think the good Lord will understand," he recalls.The next day Keith drove to the woman's home. "I sealed the deal by giving her one dollar. I actually had to borrow twenty dollars from my daughter to put gas in the car," he says. "I was so broke, a dollar was all I could afford anyway. Like the old saying, I went from the penthouse to the outhouse, from making real good money to struggling to make ends meet. I really don't know how, except the good Lord provided for us, that we were able to stay in our house and put two kids through Christian schools and my daughter through college."The business included an established customer base, but the hard work was just beginning, as Keith soon discovered. "When I first got Target, he (the late owner) had some of the major restaurants in Birmingham, and 650 termite warranties that I had to service, and I got those for one dollar," he says. "I knew after that first year that I was either going to grow it, so I could hire other employees to do some of the work, or sell it, because I didn't think I was ever going to work that hard again. My wife enjoyed it because I lost down to about 175 pounds working so hard."Then in 2007, just as the business was going well, the company suffered a serious setback. "One of my employees got killed," Keith says in a somber tone. "It wasn't on the job. He was a very big part of our organization. We really suffered through that, and we rededicated our lives to making sure we did everything for people we could do."Almost two decades ago, Keith Chandler was struggling to pay the bills and trying to get his business off the ground. Today Target has three offices with a total of seventeen employees. Keith manages the home office in Cullman, his wife Cheryl handles the bookkeeping, son Jake works in the Jasper office on Airport Road, and son-in-law Ben runs the Homewood office. "I've got guys that have been with me for 10 or 12 years," he says. "We don't have very much turnover." The company was also awarded "Best Pest Control Company" four years in a row by EBSCO Research.If there is one quality that could be summed up as the backbone of Target's longevity, it would be integrity. "Growing up in the family business taught me that you're only as good as your word," Keith says. "We have worked our rear ends off for seventeen years to build a reputation. It only takes one five-minute lapse of judgment to ruin it. That's what I instill in our technicians: to do the next right thing and take care of our customers."Keith admits there are some who feel he shouldn't mention his faith on the business website. "But that's not who I am. I was broke spiritually and monetarily," Keith says. "I prayed for God to open up the doors. And He did."What does Keith Chandler's story teach us?That God cared enough about us to create bugs. 78Website: www.targetpestcontrol.com