Millbrook business owner credits family support for leadership and community service

Ashley Williams has built Pest Pro Services into more than a pest-control company in Millbrook. With 13 employees, a base in the city’s commercial core and work that reaches Autauga County and the wider River Region, she has turned daily operations into a visible part of local life through youth sports, chamber leadership and year-round service work.

Her story starts with a loss that changed her childhood. When Williams was 11, her mother died in a car accident, and her aunt and uncle, Catherine and Larry, stepped in to raise her. Another aunt and a cousin also became important parts of the circle that held her together. That experience shaped the way she leads now: she carries a habit of giving more than she takes and of keeping people close, which shows up in the way she runs her business and treats community work as part of the job.

Family support became the foundation

The people around Williams did more than help her through a hard moment. They gave her a model for how relationships can steady a life and redirect it. In a town like Millbrook, where word travels quickly and personal reputation matters, that kind of upbringing helps explain why she is known for showing up, not just opening a business.

That support network also connects directly to the way she sees leadership. Williams’ path was not built only on entrepreneurship or ambition. It was shaped by family members who stepped in, teachers who paid attention and coaches who made room for her to grow. The result is a business owner whose leadership style still reflects the care that carried her through childhood.

Softball and school gave her structure

Sports gave Williams a place to focus that grief could not take away. In 1999, when Millbrook was building one of its first fast-pitch girls softball leagues, a coach encouraged her family to get her involved. She went on to play softball through Stanhope Elmore High School, where the game gave her structure, purpose and a healthy outlet during a difficult period.

School also mattered in the same way. Teachers such as Shay Atchison helped steady her path, adding another layer of support to the family circle around her. That combination of athletics, education and adult guidance gave her a framework for resilience that still shows in how she works with employees, customers and the organizations she serves.

A Millbrook business with countywide reach

Pest Pro Services is headquartered in Millbrook, in the southwest corner of Elmore County about ten miles north of Montgomery. The City of Millbrook says its population is approaching 17,000, while the 2020 census counted 16,564 residents. That puts Williams’ company in a city that is still small enough for reputations to matter, but large enough to support a growing service business.

The company provides pest control, wildlife removal and lawn care across Montgomery, Elmore, Autauga and Tallapoosa counties. Autauga County, one of those markets, had 58,805 residents in the 2020 census and an estimated 61,920 residents in July 2025, underscoring the customer base Williams works in every day. For a local company, that reach means she is not just serving one storefront district in Millbrook, but homes, yards and businesses across a fast-growing slice of central Alabama.

The business’s own community presence has grown alongside that footprint. Pest Pro says it sponsors youth sports and runs a Pest Pro Player of the Week recognition program for varsity baseball and softball athletes. In a county where Friday-night games and school athletics still anchor many families, that kind of support ties the company directly to the routines of local life.

Recognition followed the work

Williams was already managing the day-to-day operations of Pest Pro Services by October 2020, and public recognition followed in the years after. In 2022, she was named Montgomery Area Association Affiliate of the Year and Millbrook Area Chamber of Commerce Ambassador of the Year. Pest Pro was also recognized as Millbrook Area Chamber Small Business of the Year and ranked among Alabama’s Top 15 Small Businesses in 2023.

Those awards matter because they track a business that has grown fast enough to be noticed, but stayed local enough to remain personal. On October 1, 2025, Pest Pro marked its fifth anniversary with a community ribbon-cutting in Millbrook, a milestone that underscored how quickly the company became part of the city’s civic landscape.

Service outside the office door

Williams’ work does not stop at the company sign. She serves as chairperson for the Millbrook Area Chamber of Commerce Junior Ambassador Program, a youth leadership effort for high school juniors that focuses on leadership, civic engagement, economic development, government awareness and environmental stewardship. That role puts her in direct contact with the next generation of local leaders, especially students who may be deciding how to stay connected to their hometown.

She also organizes and contributes to the Blue Santa Toy Drive each December and serves as an ambassador for Butterfly Bridge Child Advocacy Group. Those efforts extend the same pattern that runs through her family story and her business: when a need appears, she treats it as something to answer, not watch from the sidelines.

Ashley Williams’ story shows how a local support system can do more than help one child survive a loss. In Millbrook, it helped shape a business owner who now serves customers, mentors students and reinforces the civic ties that keep a small city functioning like a community.