A Year of Progress and a Future Worth Building
By Jake Plevelich
Chairman, CAPMA Government Affairs Committee
As we close out 2025, I am proud to say that California’s professional pest management industry stands stronger, more unified, and more forward-looking than at any point in recent memory.
This past year was not just about playing defense. It was about defining who we are as professionals, as public health partners, and as responsible stewards of California’s communities, housing, and environment.
Across Sacramento, within regulatory agencies, and alongside allied stakeholders, CAPMA members helped shift the conversation. We demonstrated that modern pest management is not about overuse or shortcuts. It is about science, accountability, and results. It is about protecting people where they live, work, learn, and seek shelter.
Progress in 2025: Turning Principles into Policy
In 2025, CAPMA advanced a clear, values-driven legislative and regulatory agenda rooted in three core ideas. Professional standards matter. Public health must remain paramount. Regulation should follow science and real-world conditions.
That approach delivered tangible progress.
Throughout the year, CAPMA maintained regular engagement with both the Department of Pesticide Regulation and the Structural Pest Control Board, ensuring that professional expertise informed policy development in real time. Quarterly conversations focused on licensing, supervision standards, and continuing education modernization, helping address workforce bottlenecks that disproportionately impact small firms. At the same time, CAPMA’s ongoing dialogue with DPR reinforced our role as a trusted technical partner.
One of the most meaningful moments of the year came when CAPMA met directly with the Department of Pesticide Regulation and the Center for Biological Diversity. We stood shoulder to shoulder around a shared goal of reducing anticoagulant rodenticide use while strengthening public health protection and environmental accountability.
In those discussions, CAPMA helped advance a practical, enforceable framework focused on closing loopholes rather than creating new bans. We urged DPR to use its existing authority to fully enforce professional-only access in today’s marketplace through license verification for all online and out-of-state rodenticide sales and traceable photo ID verification for bulk acute products. These measures extend the same accountability and recordkeeping standards that already apply to in-state dealers, ensuring parity and real stewardship across all sales channels while preserving consumer access to small packages and licensed professional use.
CAPMA also led the conversation on how rodent management should be measured and regulated in the modern era. Rather than relying on rigid calendar-based limits that fail to reflect real pest pressure, we advanced the use of Electronic Rodent Monitoring as a compliance and stewardship backbone. ERM provides time-stamped, verifiable data that documents rodent activity and inactivity, supports objective decision-making, and allows regulators to confirm that rodenticide use reflects actual need rather than arbitrary dates. Recognizing ERM as an approved monitoring and reporting method supports the shared goal of reducing unnecessary anticoagulant use while strengthening oversight, accountability, and transparency.
That collaboration mattered because it proved something important. Progress is possible when science leads, enforcement is workable, and all sides commit to getting it right.
Beyond rodent management, CAPMA spent 2025 developing and advancing a set of proactive legislative proposals that will anchor our 2026 agenda. These include consumer transparency reforms in real estate transactions, strengthened professional pest control standards in schools and shelters, and workforce modernization measures designed to help small businesses train and retain the next generation of licensed professionals without compromising safety or oversight. Together, these proposals position professional pest management not as a niche service, but as essential public health infrastructure.
Looking Ahead to 2026: Momentum with Purpose
The work ahead is just as important and even more promising.
In 2026, CAPMA will continue to push forward policies that recognize professional pest management as essential infrastructure. That includes data-driven rodent control supported by modern monitoring technology, workforce pathways that expand access to good jobs, and regulatory clarity that supports compliance rather than confusion.
All of this momentum leads us toward CAPMA Legislative Day, April 21–23, 2026.
Legislative Day is more than meetings and talking points. It is our opportunity to show policymakers what professional pest management really looks like when it is done right. Science-based, accountable, and focused on public health. It is when technicians, owners, and leaders stand together and remind the Capitol that protecting housing, schools, and communities depends on trained professionals with the right tools.
I encourage every CAPMA member to stay engaged, stay informed, and, when the time comes, show up.
Because the future of our industry is not written for us. It is written by us.
Thank you for your professionalism, your leadership, and your commitment to doing this work the right way. I look forward to continuing it together in 2026.
Jake Plevelich
Chairman, CAPMA Government Affairs Committee
By Jake Plevelich
Chairman, CAPMA Government Affairs Committee
As we close out 2025, I am proud to say that California’s professional pest management industry stands stronger, more unified, and more forward-looking than at any point in recent memory.
This past year was not just about playing defense. It was about defining who we are as professionals, as public health partners, and as responsible stewards of California’s communities, housing, and environment.
Across Sacramento, within regulatory agencies, and alongside allied stakeholders, CAPMA members helped shift the conversation. We demonstrated that modern pest management is not about overuse or shortcuts. It is about science, accountability, and results. It is about protecting people where they live, work, learn, and seek shelter.
Progress in 2025: Turning Principles into Policy
In 2025, CAPMA advanced a clear, values-driven legislative and regulatory agenda rooted in three core ideas. Professional standards matter. Public health must remain paramount. Regulation should follow science and real-world conditions.
That approach delivered tangible progress.
Throughout the year, CAPMA maintained regular engagement with both the Department of Pesticide Regulation and the Structural Pest Control Board, ensuring that professional expertise informed policy development in real time. Quarterly conversations focused on licensing, supervision standards, and continuing education modernization, helping address workforce bottlenecks that disproportionately impact small firms. At the same time, CAPMA’s ongoing dialogue with DPR reinforced our role as a trusted technical partner.
One of the most meaningful moments of the year came when CAPMA met directly with the Department of Pesticide Regulation and the Center for Biological Diversity. We stood shoulder to shoulder around a shared goal of reducing anticoagulant rodenticide use while strengthening public health protection and environmental accountability.
In those discussions, CAPMA helped advance a practical, enforceable framework focused on closing loopholes rather than creating new bans. We urged DPR to use its existing authority to fully enforce professional-only access in today’s marketplace through license verification for all online and out-of-state rodenticide sales and traceable photo ID verification for bulk acute products. These measures extend the same accountability and recordkeeping standards that already apply to in-state dealers, ensuring parity and real stewardship across all sales channels while preserving consumer access to small packages and licensed professional use.
CAPMA also led the conversation on how rodent management should be measured and regulated in the modern era. Rather than relying on rigid calendar-based limits that fail to reflect real pest pressure, we advanced the use of Electronic Rodent Monitoring as a compliance and stewardship backbone. ERM provides time-stamped, verifiable data that documents rodent activity and inactivity, supports objective decision-making, and allows regulators to confirm that rodenticide use reflects actual need rather than arbitrary dates. Recognizing ERM as an approved monitoring and reporting method supports the shared goal of reducing unnecessary anticoagulant use while strengthening oversight, accountability, and transparency.
That collaboration mattered because it proved something important. Progress is possible when science leads, enforcement is workable, and all sides commit to getting it right.
Beyond rodent management, CAPMA spent 2025 developing and advancing a set of proactive legislative proposals that will anchor our 2026 agenda. These include consumer transparency reforms in real estate transactions, strengthened professional pest control standards in schools and shelters, and workforce modernization measures designed to help small businesses train and retain the next generation of licensed professionals without compromising safety or oversight. Together, these proposals position professional pest management not as a niche service, but as essential public health infrastructure.
Looking Ahead to 2026: Momentum with Purpose
The work ahead is just as important and even more promising.
In 2026, CAPMA will continue to push forward policies that recognize professional pest management as essential infrastructure. That includes data-driven rodent control supported by modern monitoring technology, workforce pathways that expand access to good jobs, and regulatory clarity that supports compliance rather than confusion.
All of this momentum leads us toward CAPMA Legislative Day, April 21–23, 2026.
Legislative Day is more than meetings and talking points. It is our opportunity to show policymakers what professional pest management really looks like when it is done right. Science-based, accountable, and focused on public health. It is when technicians, owners, and leaders stand together and remind the Capitol that protecting housing, schools, and communities depends on trained professionals with the right tools.
I encourage every CAPMA member to stay engaged, stay informed, and, when the time comes, show up.
Because the future of our industry is not written for us. It is written by us.
Thank you for your professionalism, your leadership, and your commitment to doing this work the right way. I look forward to continuing it together in 2026.
Jake Plevelich
Chairman, CAPMA Government Affairs Committee