“When I started this business years ago, business continued to pick up. I thought I would be a one-man show and we kept having really wonderful people approach us and ask if we were hiring. I knew RJ Morris was in Prescott and was looking for a change from his chef position. We hired him and he turned around and introduced us to another chef he worked with. We kept hiring good people and we’re fortunate to be able to grow alongside the demand for our service,” Abney said with pride.

According to Abney, having team members is the best thing he could hope for. “It would have been horrible if I had continued on my own. We got really lucky with the caliber of professionals who wanted to work with us,” Abney said as he reflected on his fortunate status as a business owner. According to Abney, he is most proud of his team because of their work ethic, but a close second is how the company is careful to how they apply products. Abney’s vision for Friendly Pest Control was to revolutionize the pest control industry locally. The goal was to be safe for the environment. Friendly’s goal has been to not use any rodenticides and harness the power of exclusion and repel tactics. There is genius behind the move. Rodenticides have secondary and tertiary harms to the local environment. Other animals like birds of prey eat and share the rodents with their nest. If those rodents have poison in them, the whole bird family can die, which in turn could result in an imbalance and more rodents in the long run.