Bug Out branches out

MOSES LAKE — After a year of successfully fighting off bugs and weeds, Bug Out is expanding into helping things grow.

“I'd say 75% of (our customers) asked us, ‘Are you doing irrigation?’” said Kip Burns, who partnered with Josh Gilliam last year to create Bug Out Pest and Weed Control.

The request has been a measure of the trust Bug Out’s customers place in the company, Gilliam said. 

“You get customers that are needing other services, and they ask you, ‘Hey, who should I use for this? Or who should I use for that? Who do you use? We value your professional opinion.’ I was always getting calls (that customers needed) sprinklers adjusted. I was like, I'm here right now. Just turn them on and I'll check them real quick. And if I deem it something that's out of my range or time, I'll tell you to call X, Y and Z … So I was kind of giving away work.”

On Aug. 11, Burns and Gilliam announced that Bug Out had taken on Jacob O’Reagan, a veteran of another irrigation company in the Basin, to do sprinkler blowouts and repair. 

O’Reagan will manage the irrigation division as if it were his own business, Gilliam said, and Bug Out will provide him with support as needed.

“I bought him some tools, and we're going to just get going,” Gilliam said. “You don't need a lot of tools to do irrigation. It's pretty simple. A couple of shovels, some saws and then parts and you can get it done.”

Most repair work is done modularly, Gilliam said, replacing whole units rather than individual components in a sprinkler.

“You just put a new sprinkler in,” he said. “You don't pull the guts out and put new internals in. We're in a day and age where it's $8 for a new sprinkler and $6 for the internals. I'm not going to spend an extra 20 minutes yanking the internals out when I can just replace the whole thing.”

Repair and maintenance are as far as Bug Out is planning to go, Gilliam said. They’ll leave installation to the bigger companies.

“We're not getting into that,” he said. “We don't have the backhoes and trenchers and things like that to do (installation).”

Bug Out’s first year in business has been phenomenal, Burns said.

“I work with a lot of entrepreneurs, business owners around the country that I've met a long time ago, and we bounce things off of (each other),” he said. “I gave them what we did the first year, and they said, ‘Kip, on a scale of one to 10, you hit a seven right from the get-go,’ which is rare. The normal average is three or four. We hit a seven.”

The rapport that Bug Out has with its customers is the secret to success, Gilliam said.

“(My former boss) taught me about customer service,” Josh said. “Don’t get so big-headed you don’t please the customer. There’s no reason not to work with the customer and treat them fairly.”

    Josh Gilliam, owner of Bug Out Pest and Spray Service, stands in front of his truck. Bug Out has ballooned over the year it’s been in business and has now expanded into sprinkler repair.