Interstate Pest Named #1 Best Place to Work in Southwest Washington for 2026
Posted by the Interstate Pest Management team · May 12, 2026 · Careers & Culture
★ 1st Place — SW Washington 2026 Honorable Mention — Statewide 2026 Ranked by Employees
The 2026 Best Places to Work in Washington results are out, and we are proud to share that Interstate Pest Management was ranked first in the Southwest Washington region (small employer category) and received an Honorable Mention for placing 11th statewide.
If you’ve been thinking about pest control jobs in Washington or Oregon, or wondering what working in this industry along the I-5 corridor would actually look like, the rest of this post is our attempt to give you an honest picture.
A Quick Bit of History
Don Thorstenson founded Interstate Pest Management in The Dalles, Oregon in 1963. Four years later his nephew Mel drove to Kelso with $1,000 in his pocket and started a new branch because he saw homeowners with a pest problem and no pest control companies in the phone book. Mel’s son Brad took over in 1993 and built out the Vancouver and Portland service areas. Brad’s son Ryan stepped in as President in 2019 and has since expanded the company into Olympia and Salem. As of 2026, the Thorstenson family is still actively running the business.
That kind of continuity isn’t an accident. It happens because the company is built to last, and because people, both family and team members, want to stay. When we hire a new pest control technician in Vancouver or a CSR working from home, we aren’t staffing for a quarterly number. We’re looking for the next person who’ll be here in five or more years, taking care of customers we’ve served since the 60s.
What Our Team Says About Working Here
The Best Places to Work survey scores employers on things like leadership, work environment, training, communication, role satisfaction, and benefits. The individual responses are anonymous, which is the whole point. But we can share the themes our team brings up most often when they talk about why they work here.
Open-door leadership
Our President, the office team, and our service manager are all reachable. You can walk into the Kelso office, pick up the phone, or text your manager directly. When something needs to change, you talk to the person who can change it, not a corporate HQ a few states away. That’s one of the bigger differences between working for a family-run pest control company and working for a national franchise.
Training we pay for
Pest control is technical work. Identifying a moisture ant trail versus an odorous house ant infestation, knowing where carpenter ant colonies hide in Pacific Northwest crawl spaces, understanding rodent exclusion on older Vancouver and Portland homes. We cover state licensing, continuing education, and industry certifications like QualityPro. A more skilled tech does better work and earns more, faster, and we don’t think you should have to pay out of pocket to get there.
We have each other’s backs
When something goes sideways on a job, and in pest control occasionally something does, we troubleshoot it as a team. No blame games. No public callouts. The same goes for wins: when a route grows or a long-time customer sends in a compliment, credit goes to the technician, not the brand.
Steady work, year-round
Pests don’t stop in a downturn. Carpenter ants don’t care about the housing market. Pest control technician careers in the Pacific Northwest are among the steadier field jobs you can find, and once you add company vehicles, paid uniforms, benefits, and a defined service area, it’s the kind of job you can plan a life around.
Room to grow
A lot of our trainers, master techs, and senior team members started on a service route. The path from new-hire technician to master tech and trainer isn’t a recruiting slogan here. It’s how most of our team has actually moved up over the years.
Service, Excellence, Growth, Solutions: Our Four Core Values
We don’t have a hundred-page culture handbook. We have four words that we come back to whenever there’s a decision to make.
Service sounds obvious for a service business, but internally it also means how we take care of each other. A technician covering a coworker’s route when their kid is sick. The office team making sure a tech in the field has what they need on a tough job.
Excellence is in the small things. A uniform that’s squared away. A treatment done right the first time. A customer note thorough enough that the next tech to walk in knows exactly what’s been done.
Growth means career growth for the individual, and also a willingness as a company to try something new instead of doing it the way we did it in 1985.
Solutions is the bias toward fixing the problem in front of you instead of escalating it. When a customer in Olympia has a question, the first person who hears it owns it.
Our mission is to provide effective, preventative pest control while being friendly, easy to work with, and accessible. Our vision goes a step further: healthier communities and lasting peace of mind through exceptional service, integrity, and sustainable practices. The internal version of that vision matters just as much to us. We want a workplace where people stay, grow, and do their best work over decades, not quarters.
Who We Hire
Probably the most common question on our careers page is, “Do I need pest control experience to apply?” Experience is a plus, but no, most of our team didn’t have any when they started. We’ve hired from landscaping, construction, the military, restaurants, retail, and plenty of industries that have nothing to do with bugs. What’s harder to teach than route knowledge is the rest of it: an interest in solving problems for people, curiosity about how houses and pests work, and the integrity to do the right thing on every property when no one is watching.
We currently hire across the I-5 corridor for:
- Residential pest control technicians — Vancouver WA, Kelso/Longview WA, Olympia WA, Portland OR, and our growing Salem OR territory
- Commercial pest control technicians — restaurants, food processing, multi-family, and other commercial accounts
- Customer Service Representatives (CSRs) who can work from home
- Trainers, senior techs, master techs, and operations roles — typically promoted from within
If you have a clean driving record, you’re comfortable talking with homeowners, and you’d rather spend your day moving around than parked at a fluorescent-lit cubicle, you’re already most of the way there. The licensing, the chemistry, the entomology, that’s what we’ll teach you.
Pest Control Jobs Along the I-5 Corridor
Our service area runs the I-5 corridor from Olympia, WA south through Vancouver and Portland and down to Salem, OR. If you’ve been searching for pest control jobs in Vancouver Washington, Portland Oregon, Kelso or Longview, Olympia, or Salem, we likely have a route close to where you already live. Routes are assigned so a technician stays inside a sensible geographic area rather than crossing the whole region every day. That means more time on the work, less time burning fuel, and a real chance to get to know your customers by name.
How to Apply
The fastest way to get in front of our hiring team is through the Open Positions section of our Join Our Team page, where you can see every open position with location, expected pay, schedule, and benefits laid out clearly.
Want to work somewhere your own coworkers rank #1?
See open positions across Vancouver, Portland, Kelso, Olympia & Salem.
View Open Positions ›Frequently Asked Questions About Working at Interstate Pest
What was the Best Places to Work in Washington 2026 award?
An annual survey-based program that ranks Washington employers entirely on anonymous feedback from their own employees. Interstate Pest placed 1st in the Southwest Washington region (small employer category) and earned an Honorable Mention placing 11th statewide. There was no paid entry and no marketing application; our team’s responses are what produced the result.
Do I need pest control experience to apply?
Pest control experience is an asset but it’s not required. We hire for character and customer service first, then train the rest. Many of our current technicians came in from landscaping, construction, retail, the military, or other unrelated fields. We pay for state licensing, ongoing training, and industry certifications like QualityPro.
What kinds of jobs do you hire for?
Pest control technicians (residential and commercial) and customer service representatives. Most of our leadership came up through the route, so growth is genuinely available.
Where do you have open positions?
We hire across the I-5 corridor: Kelso/Longview WA, Vancouver WA, Olympia WA, Portland OR, and Salem OR. Current openings are listed on our Join Our Team page.
What benefits do employees get?
Competitive pay, health and dental insurance, paid time off, retirement plan options, company vehicle and uniforms for field roles, and fully paid training and licensing. Specifics for each role are listed on the Join Our Team page.
How do I apply?
Visit interstatepest.com/about-us/join-our-team/#open-positions to view open positions and apply.
The Best Solution Is Just Down The Road
We’ve been treating Pacific Northwest homes for more than sixty years, and we’ve built a team that, by their own ranking, likes working together. Being named the #1 Best Place to Work in Southwest Washington isn’t the finish line for us. It’s the floor we want to keep building from. If you’re looking for a pest control career in Washington or Oregon, or a steady, hands-on job along the I-5 corridor with a company that has its act together, we’d love to hear from you.
Interstate Pest Management. Family-owned since 1963. Proudly serving Portland, Vancouver, Kelso, Longview, Olympia, and Salem.