Season 2
If visibility is up but jobs are inconsistent, your pipeline is leaking.
Start with the Pipeline Profit Inspection. It pinpoints where Google visibility drops before booked work — and the fix order that matters.
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Guest: Michelle Nolen
Organization: Truly Nolen Pest Control
Location: Tucson, Arizona (Headquarters)
Category: Pest Control & Multi-State Operations
In this Season 2 episode of Two Lane Tucson, I sit down with Michelle Nolen of Truly Nolen, a company with more than 80 years of history and headquarters here in Tucson.
Michelle shares the company’s origin story — from cleaning outhouses during the Great Depression to becoming a multi-state operation built on culture, research, and long-term trust.
This conversation moves beyond pest control. It’s about prevention over reaction, why culture breaks first when companies scale, and how leadership shows up when systems are under stress.
Michelle talks about pivoting — how everything you did got you here, but if you want to go there, you have to do something different. And usually, the decision that feels scary is the right one.
This is a conversation about stewardship, responsibility, community, and protecting a multi-generational brand without losing its DNA.
Truly Nolen is a multi-state pest control company headquartered in Tucson, Arizona, with operations coast to coast. The leadership center houses payroll, IT, marketing, training, and technical departments — supporting service offices nationwide.
Business profile: Truly Nolen Pest Control | Tucson Headquarters.
Christian Beltran | BB Hill Landscaping
Tucson is part of Truly Nolen’s operational DNA. The company relocated here in 1955 after identifying the region as a termite epicenter. From renting a trailer and selling door-to-door, the business grew into a headquarters campus that still serves as its leadership center.
Michelle describes Tucson as a community that values consistency, longevity, and local investment — principles that continue to shape the company’s culture today.
If you’re visible but revenue feels unpredictable, the issue is often not traffic — it’s pipeline friction.
The Pipeline Profit Inspection shows exactly what’s limiting calls and booked work (and what to fix next). Delivered asynchronously (Loom + written summary). No sales call required.
Learn more about the Pipeline Profit Inspection.
Below is a readable transcript excerpt from the conversation. Minor edits were made for clarity.
Elaine: Truly Nolen has been around for more than 80 years. When you explain the company to someone new, what do you emphasize first?
Michelle: Our origin story is probably the most unsexy, unglamorous way my grandfather started a business during the Great Depression. He was in Miami Beach trying to pay the bills, like everyone was at the time. One of his more successful businesses was cleaning out people’s outhouses before indoor plumbing was common.
Michelle: While doing that work he started seeing other problems customers had — rodents, cockroaches, termites — and he began solving those problems too. The pest control business grew very organically from there.
Elaine: That’s such an interesting origin story. How did the company eventually end up headquartered in Tucson?
Michelle: My father relocated the company here in the 1950s. Tucson was identified as a termite hotspot, which made it a very logical place for a pest control company to grow. He rented a trailer and started selling services door-to-door.
Michelle: Tucson ended up becoming the headquarters and the leadership center for the company. Today many of our operational teams are still based here — payroll, marketing, IT, and training.
Elaine: You mentioned culture earlier. When a company grows as much as Truly Nolen has, what becomes the hardest thing to protect?
Michelle: Culture. Culture is what you do when you’re most stressed. Systems are important, but if you rely too much on process and forget that you’re managing people, things start to break.
Michelle: We spend a lot of time making sure leadership stays connected to what’s actually happening in the field.
Elaine: How do you do that in a company that operates across multiple states?
Michelle: One of the ways is executive ride-alongs. Leaders spend time out with technicians seeing what their day is actually like. It keeps empathy in the system and helps leadership make better decisions.
Elaine: That seems like it would change how leadership views the business.
Michelle: It absolutely does. You can’t solve people problems with systems alone. You have to understand the real experience of the people doing the work.
Elaine: Something you said earlier stuck with me — the idea of pivoting when the company needs to go somewhere new.
Michelle: Everything you did got you here. But if you want to go there, you have to do something different. And that decision is usually scary. If it feels scary, it’s often the right decision.
Elaine: That’s a powerful leadership mindset.
Michelle: It really comes down to stewardship. We’re responsible for a multi-generational brand and for the people who trust us to protect their homes and businesses.