Arrow Exterminators Stands Apart

Congratulations to PCT Magazine for celebrating 25 years of publishing its annual Top 100 list. That’s a real milestone. The list has now become an ongoing story of how this industry has changed and grown over time.

If we go back to the first published issue which reflected 2001 revenues, we see a very different industry. More than 90 of the companies on that list were family-owned and family-operated. That was the norm. Pest control was a local business, advertised in the yellow pages and built on relationships and reputation. Many owners were involved in the day-to-day operations. It was personal. Fast forward to the 2025 list, and that number has dropped to fewer than two dozen.

That’s a big shift, and one that didn’t happen without notice.

Over the past 25 years, the industry has attracted a lot of outside interest. Recurring revenue, strong customer retention, and no lack of availability made pest control a natural fit for outside investors. Private equity moved in which caused the larger companies to get more aggressive. Acquisitions definitely picked up speed.

The Top 100 list itself played a role. What started as a ranking of the industry’s largest companies gradually became a roadmap. It became one of the easiest ways to identify acquisition targets. It was a curated list of established operators, complete with size, geography, and relative position.

At the same time, running a pest control business was becoming more and more complicated.

Technology designed to improve efficiency became more widely available. Insurance and advertising costs, regulations, and labor shortages all were hitting owners on a daily basis. For many family-owned pest management companies, selling wasn’t just about getting a good price, it was about keeping up with a business that was becoming more demanding to run. The result is an industry that’s bigger, more sophisticated, and much more consolidated than it was 25 years ago.

Like most big shifts, there’s been a tradeoff.

As companies grew and ownership moved away from the day-to-day, some of that “local feel” started to fade. The personal connection between the service technician and the customer, the thing that built these businesses, became harder to maintain. Efficiency improved, but identity sometimes got lost along the way. That’s why the companies that have managed to grow and stay family-owned stand out even more today.

Arrow Exterminators is a glowing example.

They’ve been around since 1964, and they’re still family owned and operated by the Thomas family, based in Atlanta, Georgia. Over the past 24 years, they’ve grown from just over $50 million in revenue to more than $430 million, representing a 9.4% compounded annual growth rate (CAGR). That’s significant growth by any standard. But what’s more interesting about this story is how they’ve done it.

Arrow didn’t chase growth at any cost. They built it deliberately and mostly organically, expanding across the Southeast, focusing on strong local markets, and being thoughtful about acquisitions. When they brought companies into the fold, the goal wasn’t to wipe out what made those businesses work. It was to keep the people, keep the relationships, and build on top of that.

That mindset shows up in Arrow Exterminators’ culture.

It’s still very much a people-first organization. Team members stick around. Customers stay loyal. And even as the company has gotten bigger, it hasn’t lost that sense of being grounded. That’s not easy to do, especially in today’s environment.

And that’s really what makes looking back at 25 years of the Top 100 so interesting.

You see the industry evolve and see the rise of consolidation. You can see who scaled quickly, who stayed steady, and who adapted as things changed. But you also see that there’s more than one way to succeed. Some companies grew through capital and aggressive expansion. Others took a more measured approach, focusing on culture, consistency, and long-term thinking.

Arrow falls into that second group, and their results show that approach still works.