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Otto the Rat Man
Orkin was founded in Lockport, Pennsylvania in 1901 by Otto Orkin, who began selling rat poison door-to-door at age 14. One of six children of a Latvian immigrant family, it was Otto's responsibility from an early age to shoot and poison rats to keep them out of the family's food stores and away from their farm animals. At age 12, Orkin began experimenting with different methods to poison rats in order to discover the most effective ones. When he was 14, Orkin borrowed 50 cents from his parents to buy arsenic in bulk, and he began consulting with apothecaries about the best proportions and mixtures to use. His initial rat poison formulas contained a combination of arsenic and phosphorus paste, mixed with fresh food scraps or red-dyed flour or sugar (so that it would not be mistaken as edible). He began offering his preparations to his neighbors for free, carrying inside what would become his signature black satchel a number of measured amounts of poison in paper bags that bore the word "POISON" along with a drawing of a skull and crossbones. If the customer was satisfied with the effectiveness of Orkin's rat poison and wanted more to use, only then would he charge them for his service. Within six months, Orkin had several regular customers.

Orkin began expanding his business outside his hometown by taking advantage of its proximity to the Lehigh Railway, which ran from New York City to Buffalo. This allowed for easy travel to nearly anywhere in the United States. Orkin chose to travel south. His research had led him to determine that Richmond, Virginia was a city that did not have an established extermination business, and so in 1909, Orkin arrived there, and began to establish not only his poison sales business in the area, but an extermination service business, as well. Orkin found that it was much more practical and economical to perform a single "clean-out" service and then return regularly to ensure the pests could no longer secure a foothold in a building than it was to perform a full "clean-out" service once or twice a year. It was also during this time that Orkin sought to elevate the perception of his occupation by launching a public relations campaign that touted extermination services as necessary to good sanitation. Though Orkin had maintained an unofficial office in a Richmond boarding house since 1909, Orkin's business remained "officially" headquartered at a post office address in Easton, Pennsylvania until 1912, when he established an official office in downtown Richmond. It was from here that Orkin received his first government contract in 1925 with the Army Corps of Engineers to mitigate the rat infestation of the Wilson Dam in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. On the way to Muscle Shoals, Orkin stopped in Atlanta, Georgia, a city that had no real exterminator business presence at the time. He was thus inspired to move his headquarters to the city.

Orkin Exterminating Company
"Orkin The Rat Man" became the Orkin Exterminating Company when it moved its headquarters to Atlanta, Georgia in January 1926 (though it would maintain the brand of "Orkin The Rat Man" in Virginia until 1956). The office opened at the 609 Candler building on January 2 with Otto Orkin as president and his nephew, Theodore Oser, as vice president of sales. By April of that year, Orkin serviced over 24 major clients in the city of Atlanta, which he listed proudly in advertisements he took out in the Atlanta Chamber of Commerce's publication, City Builder. In August 1926, the now-familiar red and white Orkin diamond logo began appearing on advertisements and official company letterheads to replace The Rat Man.

The stock market crash of 1929 and the Great Depression had little effect on Orkin's business. The company's offices moved to a larger space at 82 Courtland Street in 1929, and by 1930, Orkin had 13 branches in eight southern states. The branch offices were mostly run by relatives who had worked for him in the original Atlanta and Richmond offices. To start a new branch office, Otto would invest $5,000 ($0 today), from which a salary of $50 per week ($0 today) was paid to the branch partner (and to Otto while he helped set up the branch), premises were secured, staff was hired, and purchases of a service truck, tools, supplies, and advertising were made. The balance of the funds was typically enough to keep the branch solvent while it built a customer base to become self-sufficient, but occasionally funds ran low and the branch could not afford to pay Otto his salary. In these cases, he accepted an "IOU," and collected the interest on this and his initial investment once the office began to make money and applied the money to the investment in another branch.

Orkin expanded its methods and its service offerings throughout the 1930s to include fumigation and termite removal. Otto was late to adopt either of these, as he had concerns about the safety of the chemicals involved. Orkin licensed the Terminix termite control system from the E.L. Bruce Lumber Company and sold the system through "Orkin Terminix Company" franchises in several locations in 1931 and 1932. Orkin discontinued the Terminix-only franchises after 1932, though it is unclear whether this was because Otto disliked the single-service operations that were required of the franchise agreement with Bruce Company (meaning that he could not offer the rest of Orkin's pest control services through the franchises) or if Otto had strategically intended to only run these franchises for a short period of time in order to learn about termite extermination from Terminix and then apply them to growing the service within his own company.

Beginning in 1937, Otto sought to centralize his business. Prior to this, each branch operated mostly autonomously, adhering to most of the same standards and systems, but this independence caused some confusion among consumers, many of whom believed each Orkin branch was an independently owned franchise. This consolidation helped every Orkin branch be recognized as part of a single company and centralized all national billing through the Atlanta office. These changes spurred further state-by-state growth, moving outward from the core of southern states the company was already in. By 1940, Orkin had 50 branches in 14 states, including branch offices in nearly every major southern city. Gross sales that year were around $1.5 million ($0 today).

World War II and postwar growth
The United States' entry into World War II in 1941 posed challenges to Orkin in the form of shortages of personnel, chemicals and supplies. In the particular face of personnel shortages, Ted Oser worked with the National Pest Control Association founder, Bill Buettner, to meet with legislators, rationing boards, and other government agencies to convince them to classify pest control as an "essential service" during the war. Such classification would afford Orkin (and other pest control companies) draft deferments and placement on a preference list to receive chemicals and supplies such as gasoline, tires, and food ration points to manufacture rat bait. Pest control became one of only two service industries operating during the war to be declared as "essential"&mdash;the other was mortuary service. The war also caused a growth in the number of military contracts that Orkin took on&mdash;the company had over 150 military establishments under contract for regular bed bug fumigations and pest control, and many railroads maintained around-the-clock service agreements that had Orkin pest control teams sleeping in shifts on cots in the rail yards. Pest control services for homes and businesses also remained in demand on top of all of the additional wartime service that Orkin was providing. This overall increase in demand strained the company's resources, particularly since the chemicals that were most readily available for pest control were not as effective and required more frequent treatments, which often overextended the already limited number of workers. In order to maximize resources, many branch offices were consolidated, some accounts were serviced less often, and service providers traveled further and more often. Despite wartime shortages, however, Orkin not only survived, but it actually grew. In 1945, the company had record gross sales of $2.098 million ($0 today) and maintained 82 branches in 14 states.

Following the war, the introduction of new, more powerful chemicals for extermination, combined with a handful of fatal accidents attributed to a lack of experience and training among some of Orkin's staff, led to a cultural change in the company as it sought to hire academics and experts in the fields of public health, entomology, chemistry, and sanitation. Among these hires was Herman Fellton, formerly of the U.S. Public Health Service, as Orkin's technical director. Fellton centralized and standardized the purchase, use, and storage of chemicals and supplies in all of Orkin's field offices, and he placed an intense focus on training for branch managers and supervisors, conducting four-day training courses and developing printed instructions for the use and handling of all chemicals. The cultural change also had effects on the literal appearance of the company&mdash;the company moved once again into new offices at 590 Courtland Street and the adjacent building at 591 Peachtree. For the first time, the executive offices were separate from the service department, with the former in the Peachtree building, and the latter in the Courtland building. In 1947, Orkin began issuing company-wide uniforms for its service technicians that followed the professional appearance that Otto had long required of his employees and bore the red diamond Orkin logo on the hats, jackets and shirts.

The introduction of new, more effective chemicals for pest control lent to the expansion of Orkin's termite and fumigation services, in particular. However, the increasingly hazardous nature of the chemicals required more safety precautions and monitoring to ensure that the hazards of the treatments didn't outweigh their benefits. Orkin was instrumental in emphasizing safety practices within the pest control industry, with Oser being named president of the NPCA in 1944 on a safety platform. Oser was also instrumental in forcing the shift in both industry and public attitudes that hiring a pest control service was not something to be ashamed of, but rather something that was a valuable service that protected the health and welfare of people and property.

By 1950, Orkin had grown to 141 branches in 20 states, with over 1,000 employees and $6 million ($0 today) in sales. The company's growth exploded throughout the 1950s and is largely attributed to Orkin's profit-sharing and incentive programs for its employees. Many branch and district managers made several times what Otto himself did each year, and many employees became millionaires through Orkin's profit-sharing. Gross revenues more than doubled to $15.6 million in 1956. The 1950s also brought a new advertising medium--television. The cartoon mascot of "Otto the Orkin Man", an anthropomorphized pesticide spray can, and his accompanying jingle became one of the most recognizable advertisements in the United States. The boom in positive public relations for the company and the public interest in the real Otto Orkin that the television advertisements generated affected everything from branding on the caps worn by service technicians and the trucks (both now bore the "Otto" character as well as the Orkin diamond) to the details of the company headquarters' relocation to 713 West Peachtree Street in 1951. Every expense of the move was publicly reported; the building was modernly appointed, and upon its opening, Orkin staged an open house for the public to tour the offices and enjoy a variety of entertainment and exhibits.

Shakeups and scandal
The rise of Otto's sons (Sanford and William) and sons-in-law (Petty Bregman and Perry Kaye) up through the ranks of the company during the 1950s resulted in a number of changes in the company's management structure. They often clashed with the group of Orkin's long-term executives, many of whom either quit or were fired by Kaye or one of Otto's sons. Controversy brewed as Otto struggled with his sons and Kaye over control of the company. The youngest Orkin son, William, was determined that the company not have any executives outside the Orkin family, and by the mid 1950s, Otto himself had become relegated to figurehead status within the company by his sons and sons-in-law. Bregman had long aligned himself with Otto's interests rather than with the positions of his brothers-in-law, and following the younger Orkins' purge of most of the company's long-term executives, Bregman also left the company in 1956.

In the late 1950s, rumors began to circulate that questioned Otto's mental soundness in his old age. Despite the insistence of a number of employees to the press that Otto, while eccentric, was still very much of sound mind, the rumors persisted. Further rumors in the press suggested that Kaye and Otto's sons sought to exaggerate Otto's condition in order to expedite their takeover of the company. The family scandal came to a head on May 16, 1960, when Kaye and Otto's sons had Otto institutionalized and declared legally incompetent. Speculation in the media exploded, as this occurred not long after Otto had transferred his controlling stake in the company to his sons and oldest daughter (Kaye's wife). Otto successfully fought to have his competency status restored, aided by his younger daughter, Gloria; her husband, Petty Bregman; and Ted Oser. The Fulton County lunacy commission made its ruling as to Otto's sanity in August 1960. Otto filed a lawsuit against his sons, his daughter Beatrice, and her husband Perry Kaye, accusing them of conspiring to have him declared incompetent so that they could take over the company, but he eventually settled with them out of court. At the end of 1960, Otto and Gloria both sold their remaining shares of the company for $5.35 million ($0 today) and $750,000 ($0 today), respectively.

Orkin was troubled by more than leadership changes and family scandal in the period from 1958 to 1961. Pest resistance to common incecticides, growing regulations over the pest control industry, and a number deaths attributed to the misuse of pesticides resulted in a drop in annual revenues for Orkin in 1960 for the first time in the company's history. In August 1961, the three Orkin siblings who retained ownership over the company&mdash;Sanford, William, and Bernice&mdash;sold 360,000 shares, about 15 percent of the interest in the company, to the public at $24 per share ($0 today), "in order to diversify on a personal basis". Orkin's first report to its stockholders noted the company's highest profits ever and announced plans for the construction of a new home office building, to be located at 2170 Piedmont Road. Orkin set revenue and profit records again in 1963 and executives often cited the "potential" of the business. However, a true rumor had begun to circulate&mdash;Orkin was for sale. In April 1964, the company was acquired by Rollins Inc. for $62.4 million ($0 today).

Rollins Era
Rollins' purchase of Orkin became known as the first leveraged buyout to be made in the United States. Under the purview of Wayne Rollins, a number of cultural and organizational changes were made to Orkin. Among the changes made were the establishment of the Orkin Acceptance Corporation, a company-owned finance company intended to streamline customer financing of service agreements; computerizing payroll, accounts, and billing; and vertical integration through the acquisition of Dettelbach Pesticide Corporation, which became the primary manufacturer and distributor of Orkin's pesticides. In 1965, Rollins acquired Arwell, Inc., a Waukegan, Illinois-based termite and pest control company for $3.14 million ($0 today). Through a gradual process of branding and name changes, Arwell eventually became known as the "Midwest Region of Orkin Exterminating Company", and the acquisition provided Orkin with entry to the commercial pest control industry.

In 1978, Gary Rollins, one of Wayne Rollins' sons, was named president of Orkin as part of a major overhaul of Rollins, Inc.'s executive structure. Gary was the first person to hold this title since Orkin had been acquired in 1964 (Earl Geiger, who had been at the helm of Orkin since the acquisition held the titles of executive vice president and division head). In 1979, one of Orkin's worst-performing branches was converted into a "development" branch to test new ideas, procedures, and techniques to see if they held promise to improve performance and revenues in the rest of the company. From 1979 to 1984, ideas forged in the development branch resulted in a number of changes made throughout the company that nearly doubled productivity. In 1984, Gary Rollins was elected president and chief operating officer of Rollins, Inc., and Ed Elkins became president of Orkin. Elkins had worked for Orkin in nearly every capacity over a 38-year career with the company and served as president until his retirement in 1987.

Following Elkins' retirement, the position of Orkin president was filled for the first time by someone from outside of the company--Bob Mercer. One of Mercer's first major initiatives as president of Orkin was the improvement of the company's employee training programs, which reduced both customer cancellations and employee turnover. He also oversaw a major reorganization of Orkin's district and branch office structure, which gave more responsibility and authority to district and branch managers. Mercer stepped down as president after only three years with the company, and Gary Rollins returned as the head of Orkin, still retaining his title of president and chief operating officer of Rollins.

During the 1990s, Orkin developed and introduced a number of new pest control techniques and products that often improved the effectiveness of treatments while reducing the amount of chemicals used. The company also launched a number of environmental awareness campaigns, which included a partnership with the National Museum of Natural History to fund exhibits such as the O. Orkin Insect Zoo. From 1997 to 2001, a number of rapid changes occurred within the company in order to improve sales, customer retention and employee training, as well as to further streamline and modernize the Orkin business model. Of the changes that this era brought, among the most significant were the opening of the Rollins Learning Center, improved partnerships with universities and research institutions, and adjustments to the company's quality assurance, customer service, and service guarantee practices.