In 2007, Clayton, Dubilier and Rice acquired ServiceMaster Global Holdings and took the company private. In 1986, Terminix joined the ServiceMaster family of brands and by 1990, it was the largest pest control company in the world. Over the next 30 years, Bruce’s company would continue to expand nationally and internationally. Two years later, franchisees began offering residential and commercial pest control services.
In 1955, Terminix was the first company to offer a termite protection contract with annual inspections and a guarantee. When his senior chemist Frank Lyons developed the first termiticide, an insecticide specifically designed to kill termites, he realized they had discovered the formula to 'nix the termites.' Hence the name Terminix, and the opening of the Bruce Terminix Research Laboratory in 1927. Bruce, owner of a hardwood flooring company in Memphis in the 1920s, was searching for a method of protecting his wood flooring from damage by termites.
