{"id":12038,"date":"2020-09-01T11:58:36","date_gmt":"2020-09-01T01:58:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/professionalpestmanager.com\/?p=12038"},"modified":"2021-03-19T00:36:31","modified_gmt":"2021-03-18T14:36:31","slug":"dynamic-duo-great-mates-great-team","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/professionalpestmanager.com\/nz\/professional-pest-manager-magazine\/dynamic-duo-great-mates-great-team\/","title":{"rendered":"DYNAMIC DUO: GREAT MATES, GREAT TEAM"},"content":{"rendered":"

Syngenta interview Steve Butcher and Casey Atkins from Riverside Pest Management to find out what makes them a “Dynamic Duo”.<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/div><\/em><\/p>\n

Steve Butcher<\/strong> and Casey Atkins<\/strong> aren\u2019t your typical boss-employee duo; they\u2019re also great mates who\u2019ve known each other since they were kids. Syngenta<\/a> have interviewed this Dynamic Duo, to find out what makes this pair from Riverside Pest Management in Deniliquin such a powerful team.<\/p>\n

Steve:<\/strong> I\u2019ve lived in Deni my whole life, except when I was away for four years doing fumigation work in Queensland. Working for other people became very stale and tired, so I came back to Deni and went out on my own. To be honest, I thought running my own pest management business would be a lot easier than what it is. When I left my job to be my own boss, I thought it would be a day here, a day there, but it\u2019s not that simple. The best thing about it is being able to make my own choices. If I want to try something different or do things in a new way, I don\u2019t have to run it by anyone. It\u2019s a family owned and operated business, and we\u2019ve got a really great team, along with our two termite detection dogs.<\/p>\n

Casey started with us about four or five years ago. I\u2019ve known her forever; she was a couple of years above me in my brother\u2019s year at school. Our business was advertising for a trainee and Case sent me a message asking whether she was wasting her time if she applied, and we went from there.<\/p>\n

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The team, including termite sniffer dogs, from Riverside Pest Management<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Casey is very good at what she does. During the week, I\u2019d say 30 per cent of the time we work together, often on Shire contract jobs. If she comes across something she doesn\u2019t yet know, she\u2019ll come to work the next day having researched it. It\u2019s good to know she has that interest in her work \u2013 that if she doesn\u2019t know something, she\u2019ll go and learn about it. I don\u2019t do that as much, so we\u2019re a little bit different. I often send her photos and ask, \u201cwhat do you think this is?\u201d. Her answer will be completely different to what I think, and she\u2019ll give me a reason why. She\u2019s usually right.<\/p>\n

Working in the small town where we grew up, most people knew one of us as kids. It\u2019s great to have that advantage, though we struggle a bit when we have to do a job for an old school teacher!<\/p>\n

We\u2019re not too serious either. Casey brings a bit of attitude to the team, but we\u2019re pretty good friends and similar in many ways: we\u2019re both easy going, love our loud country music, our beer, camping. In between jobs we don\u2019t talk shop; we\u2019re having a laugh. We\u2019re absolute idiots.<\/p>\n

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Steve Butcher and Casey Atkins, the Dynamic Duo from Riverside Pest Management<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I think having a female technician on the team is really good. I find they\u2019re very thorough, and Casey gets along with the clients really well. I\u2019ve worked with a few female techs and they\u2019re the same. Casey is passionate about what she does. She\u2019ll work 10 to 12 hour days all week, then front up again on Saturday.<\/p>\n

I try not to be her \u2018boss\u2019. If there any decisions she needs to make, she can make them. I let Casey have her own opinion, so it\u2019s not a typical employer-employee relationship. We\u2019re more just mates who go to work together.<\/p>\n

Casey:<\/strong> I\u2019ve always been a country girl. Being an outdoors person, as a kid I played with bugs and all that sort of stuff . But I never thought about being a pest control operator.<\/p>\n

I left school early, and I was working at a service station when I heard Steve had a trainee position opening. I enquired, and then he actually hounded me so much\u00a0that I couldn\u2019t say no! I wasn\u2019t real keen to start with, but then I thought, \u201cwhy not?\u201d I like to work outdoors, and I\u2019d rather be out on a job than inside sitting in an office all day. So I said to him, \u201call right, I\u2019ll do it.\u201d
\nStarting a new career with Steve has been easy. I already knew him, so we got along well. It\u2019s just always worked. Initially I had to do an trainee course to get certified \u2013 mostly on the job training and some theory which I did online. Steve and Jess (Steve\u2019s wife, who owns Riverside Pest Management alongside Steve) have been fantastic with it all. If any training courses or anything comes up, he\u2019ll always said to me, \u201cdo you want to do this course?”<\/p>\n

We have a good working relationship. A lot of our work is contracted by the Shire, and we do heritage building work, putting things in place to protect them from termites. A rewarding job for us is when someone else has had a go at something, hasn\u2019t been able to solve the problem, and we can get in and sort that out.<\/p>\n

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Ben, 3rd generation termite sniffer dog, is an integral part of the business<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

No one is harder on myself than me. If I don\u2019t know something, I research and study it. Being a female working in a male-dominated trade is not for the faint hearted, but I am pretty passionate about what I do. If people think\u00a0I\u2019m not capable because I am female, I\u2019m determined to prove them wrong. Working on construction sites where\u00a0I am generally the only female could be intimidating, but\u00a0I know I belong on that site just as much as the bloke standing next to me. And I am respected for that.<\/p>\n

As a boss, Steve\u2019s easy to talk to. Nothing is a problem. It makes life so much easier when you can just talk about anything. He\u2019s a larrikin and he was a good kid at school; now he\u2019s a great mate and we have a lot of common \u2013 fishing, camping, all that sort of stuff . I joke that he can be a pain, but if I have a question or any issue, he\u2019s good at explaining the answer. Anytime he gets a new idea or comes up with some grand plan, he always puts it to me and asks for my thoughts.<\/p>\n

Honestly, I reckon working with someone I\u2019ve known for so long has made a difference. I can be myself around him and he knows what I like. I think it makes it a lot easier, especially in this kind of work. Really, I wouldn\u2019t want to be doing anything else.<\/p>\n

This Dynamic Duo is brought to you by Demand Duo<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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