Tallahassee: (850) 539-1599
Valdosta: (229) 244-1511

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Bill and Debbie Wert are the owners of TruGreen Tallahassee. Bill and Debbie have been married for thirty six years and have a daughter named Jennifer. Jennifer graduated from the University of Florida (UF) in 2001, and works as a veterinary technician at the UF Veterinary Hospital. She and her husband Randy have a ten month old son, Cade Aaron, who happens to be the apple of his grandpa’s eye. Bill and Debbie are members of the First Presbyterian Church of Quincy, where Bill serves as a deacon and a member of the board of the Presbyterian University Center. Professionally, Bill is a member of the Valdosta / Lowndes County and Tallahassee Chamber of Commerce and the Tallahassee 100. He is also a loyal member of Leads group 1. He serves on the TruGreen Franchise Advisory Board. The board coordinates training meetings, supports all of the local franchises, and makes recommendation to TruGreen corporate on items they would like to see change in the organization. He holds a Florida Pest Control Operator’s license and is a Best Management Practices trainer. He also earned his Eagle Scout rank.

Bill graduated from the University of Tennessee in 1976 with a Bachelor of Science degree in Agriculture. He began working for a local nursery after college and put that book knowledge to work. In January of 1985, Bill began working for what was the largest pest control company in the United States at the time. He started from the ground floor as a technician, moved up to Service Manager, then Branch Manager, then finally to Region Manager. He earned the award for Top Region Manager supervising over 250 employees with annual revenue of seven million dollars. That company was bought out by TruGreen in 1997.

Bill was transferred to Pensacola to open a new corporate branch for TruGreen in 1997. He was responsible for finding a location, buying equipment, hiring people, and getting the branch organized from scratch. After being successful there, he transferred to Ft. Myers as the new branch manager. He supervised over 100 employees and increased the branch revenue from four million to seven million dollars under his leadership.

Wanting to fulfill a life long dream of owning his own business, he and Debbie bought the Tallahassee branch from TruGreen corporate and turned it in to a franchise on April 1, 2006. Under their leadership customer retention grew from 36% to 65% in the first year. Retention in 2009 was up to 75.3%. There has been 45.6% growth in the franchise over the last four years. In 2006, the franchise was awarded Start Up of the Year. In 2008, we won Most Improved Franchise. In 2009, we were nominated for Franchise of the Year. This turn around has happened because of Bill’s focus on customer service. Bill still likes to go out and visit customers on their lawns and get input on our service directly from them.

If you are a TruGreen Tallahassee customer, we look forward to continuing to earn your business. If you are not, we would certainly like the opportunity to explain our program and what we do and help you make your lawn flourish.

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