The PMP Hall of Fame

Larry Treleven has spent practically his entire life serving in leadership roles, from his family company’s board of directors to the president of the NPMA.

By his own account, Larry Treleven has been associated with the pest management industry in some way since he “was old enough to fog a mirror.” And maybe even longer than that when you consider, after his birth in 1948, he was driven home from the hospital in his father’s Sprague Pest Solutions service vehicle.

“I joined Sprague on April Fool’s Day of 1971,” Treleven adds. “And my dad liked to make a big deal of that.”

In his early role as a technician with the Tacoma, Wash.-based company, Treleven serviced bars, hotels and restaurants, doing ant, flea and termite inspections.

Now, decades later, Treleven is vice president and co-owns Sprague with his brother, Alfie. He’s also served on the Sprague board of directors for 45 years. But none of this landed in Larry Treleven’s lap: He earned his place in the company after also serving as a Sprague sales associate and a branch manager.

“I wore all kinds of hats doing different jobs at Sprague because we only had three other people in the company,” he says.

One leader, multiple honors

Treleven greets retired CEO (and fellow Hall of Famer) Bob Rosenberg at PestWorld.
Photo: Larry Treleven

Treleven held the president’s position for a number of years before stepping back to divide the responsibilities of running the company with Alfie.

“During these years, I was also president of the Washington State Pest Control Association on four separate occasions and president of the Oregon Pest Control Association,” Treleven says, adding that he continues to serve on those governing boards as well as the board for the Environmental Care Association of Idaho. In Colorado, he sits on the state association’s Government Affairs Committee.

That’s an impressive list of roles to have played, but if you know of Treleven, it’s probably because he was president of the National Pest Management Association (NPMA) from 1994 to 1995.

“I’ve served in every leadership role in the national association since I became involved with it in 1972,” he says.

One might consider that to be enough governing roles in pest management to fill three lifetimes — but wait! There’s more. Treleven is also recognized as a founding member of the Professional Pest Management Alliance (PPMA) and continues to serve as a state public affairs representative (SPAR) of NPMA for Washington, Oregon and Idaho.

A new direction

Treleven jokes around in the Sprague home office parking lot.
Photo: Larry Treleven

However, despite being peripherally connected to the pest industry since his ride home from the hospital, for years Treleven set his sights on a far different future.

Growing up in the north end of Tacoma, Treleven attests to having an idyllic childhood — boating on Puget Sound, enjoying summers at his grandfather’s beach in Gig Harbor and playing sports. During this time, Treleven was attending St. Edwards Seminary where he considered becoming a Catholic priest.

“But after all of those years of Catholic school, I decided I didn’t want to be a priest and registered at the ‘pagan’ institution of the University of Washington (UW),” Treleven teases. “It blew my mother’s mind that I would go there, coming from a priesthood education.”

While mulling over the idea of becoming a teacher, Treleven was working part-time for the family business — one his grandfather, A.H. Treleven Sr., purchased in 1931 from founder W.B. Sprague. His father, A.H. Treleven Jr., joined in 1937.

“I thought it was interesting, going to all the food processing plants, mills and factories,” Treleven says. “I’d get immediate gratification because we would be able to solve so many problems for people. Many of those people weren’t just our clients, they were also our friends in the community.”

The business of people

The Treleven family at a recent get-together.

When his father encouraged Treleven to get involved with the Washington State Pest Control Association, the Pacific Northwest Pest Management Conference and the National Pest Control Association (now, the NPMA), he found that encouragement and inspiration was all around him.

He cites fellow Pest Management Professional Hall of Famers Norman Cooper (1999), John Cook Sr. (2015), and Red Tindol (2000) among many of the strong influences and mentors along the way that helped guide him in the industry.

“I recognized that the industry is full of good people and I wanted to remain a part of it,” he says.

So he did. And now, Treleven — like many of the professionals who inspired him — is working to bring others into the fold. In fact, he counts this among his greatest achievements in the industry, a fact that’s especially significant when you consider his above-mentioned resume.

“Recruiting and nurturing great people in our industry is important to me,” Treleven says. “There’s a lot of satisfaction in realizing that we’ve inspired and encouraged some of the fourth generation of our family to join the organization.

“There’s a certain amount of family pride in having an organization run for 90 years,” he concludes. “To know that when my turn is up, that the legacy will continue in capable caring hands with the fourth generation — that’s a special thing.”

Senior editor Will Nepper can be reached at wnepper@northcoastmedia.net or 216-706-3775.

Vern Toblan was instrumental in guiding the industry fraternity into the 21st century.

How did a Swiss national, who taught ballroom dancing in Canada, end up in charge of a U.S.-based business fraternity for pest management professionals? For Vern E. Toblan, it was a combination of talent, tenacity, and a little bit of serendipity.

Toblan was born March 5, 1930 in Zurich as Werner Hugentobler. After studying agriculture under the Farm School project in Strickhof, Switzerland, he immigrated to Canada in 1953. He went there instead of the U.S. because the waiting list was too long for the latter. As he told Pest Management Professional (PMP) Editor At-Large Jerry Mix in 2008, “I figured that Canada is close to the United States, and so sooner or later I’d make it.” He came to the U.S. in the late 1970s.

A variety of jobs followed, including farmhand, ambulance driver and milkman. In his 2008 PMP interview, Toblan revealed he became a telephone lineman only because he was nearby when the man doing the job fell off the pole and broke his leg. Toblan filled in for the man during recovery.

A career in pesticides

It was during a teaching stint at the Arthur Murray Dance Studio in Regina, Saskatchewan, where he met his wife, Kathleen Lannan, who preceded him in death. They married in 1960 and had daughter Brenna in 1965 and son Blair in 1971.

In 1958, Toblan was able to put his agricultural background to use: He answered a want ad in the newspaper and thus began his career in pesticide sales with Chipman Chemical, a legacy company of Bayer. At the time, Chipman was the exclusive distributor in Canada for Fisons Ltd., a British company that is also a legacy company of Bayer.

Toblan told PMP in 2008 that when Fisons took distribution in-house in the late 1960s, he went with them.

“In 1973, I was involved in the development of Ficam,” he said, referring to the bendiocarb-based pesticide. “My first job along that line was to do a survey in North America of the pest control industry to figure out how best to distribute that product in this section of the world. I spent two years and 500,000 travel miles visiting pest control firms and universities to devise a marketing plan for Ficam.

“That’s when I started my education work,” Toblan said. “I figured the best way to sell things was to educate people on how to use it.”

After retirement in 1995, Toblan launched a second career as an industry consultant, T&L Consulting, in which he traveled worldwide hosting educational seminars on various products. Among his projects was a five-year contract with B&G Equipment Co. for work in Europe and the Middle East. At the heart of it all, of course, was educating the end user, the technicians.

Throughout his industry career, technician education was a top priority for Vern Toblan.

Pi Chi connection

As a supplier representative to the pest management industry, it only made sense for Toblan to join the industry’s business fraternity, Pi Chi Omega. He did so in 1979, and served as president from 1992-93. Founded on the Purdue University campus in 1955, the fraternity continues its mission today of encouraging and promoting pest management education among professionals.

By 2000, when Dr. Bill Jackson of Ohio’s Bowling Green State University wanted to retire from his Pi Chi Omega executive director duties, he looked to Toblan to take the fraternity to the next level.

“Bill was a good friend and mentor, and certainly instrumental in recruiting me to be his successor,” Toblan noted at the time of Dr. Jackson’s death in 2010.

Likewise, Toblan was a friend and mentor to many in the industry — as Dale Baker, vice president of J.T. Eaton & Co., Twinsburg, Ohio, and current Pi Chi Omega president, attests.

“Vern was a straight shooter, who could call people out without malice or judgment. I really admired that about him. That, and the way that he would have a highball during the meetings,” Baker says with a chuckle, noting that Toblan was reminiscent of his grandfather, fellow PMP Hall of Famer Stanley Z. Baker, in many ways.

Dale Baker recalled his first Pi Chi Omega meeting, which kicked off with a cocktail reception, as somewhat nerve-wracking. With a gathering of so many prestigious industry insiders, he didn’t want to say or do anything embarrassing, yet wasn’t sure what to expect.

“Vern sat next to me and said ‘Dale, you seem to be without a drink?’” Baker says. “He said it with a mischievous smile, like he knew what I was thinking or like when you get someone in a checkmate. Anyway, that question — more like a comment — and that smile and him sitting next to me was a pretty awesome moment.”

Toblan took immense pride in his work for the fraternity, Baker says, and his enthusiasm was contagious.

“When Vern passed, it became painfully obvious to all of us how much he did for the organization,” he says. “His commitment was unquestionable. His passion was inspirational. His legacy is undeniable. Our chain is one link shorter.”

On Aug. 23, 2014, Toblan died peacefully in Middletown, Del. at age 84, with family at his side. He had been caretaker of Pi Chi Omega to the very end of his life.

Professional, but never one to take things too seriously, even his last wishes were eloquently expressed at the time by daughter Brenna Toblan. Rather than a formal funeral, she said, “What he would want would be for all of you to go out and have a good meal, and maybe raise a glass of wine to his memory.”

Editor Heather Gooch can be reached at hgooch@northcoastmedia.net or 330-321-9754.

Dr. Vernard Lewis reflects on a 26-year career at the University of California, Berkeley.

Dr. Vernard Lewis

Saying that he’s “had a blast,” Dr. Vernard Lewis reminisced with Pest Management Professional (PMP) about his 26-year career as an entomologist at the University of California, Berkeley’s Richmond Field Station.

It’s a good time for Dr. Lewis to look back, because he plans to retire from Berkeley in June 2017. Until then, he has one more big “blast” coming on Oct. 17, when he will be inducted into PMP’s Hall of Fame.

“I’ve been blessed with high energy and curiosity, but now it’s time for some young blood to come and take this position to the next level,” he says. “I’m ready to leave because I’m tired.”

Dr. Lewis, 65, was bitten by the entomology bug at age 5, and collected insects in kindergarten. The Minnesota native spent seven years with his grandparents in Fresno, Calif., then moved back to Minneapolis for middle school and high school. As the oldest of 10, his bug-collecting hobby was something that was his alone, something he didn’t have to share.

When high school counselors told Dr. Lewis he wasn’t smart enough to go to college, he decided to prove them wrong. He arrived at Berkeley as an undergrad in 1972, kicking off what has been nearly a half-century relationship with the university.

At Berkeley, Dr. Lewis earned his bachelor’s degree in agricultural sciences in 1975, his master’s degree in entomology in 1979, and his Ph.D. in 1989. He joined the Berkeley faculty in urban entomology in 1990.

Photo: Dr. Vernard Lewis

He recalls how happy he was to be offered the job.

“They were looking for an urban entomologist and they never had an African-American faculty member in my college. So, here I am,” Dr. Lewis says. “With me, you can check all kinds of boxes.”

To help pay for his doctoral studies, he worked at San Quentin Prison as the head of the pest management department from 1986 to 1988 (Editor’s Note: See PMP’s June cover story for more on his experience there).

Dr. Lewis was also part-owner of IPM Systems at that time, and says he has maintained his state pest control licenses since 1982.

“San Quentin is a tough place,” he says, explaining how he ran the pest management program there. “I think I had the most success in modernizing their program and using more modern tools.”

Drs. Vernard Lewis and Lisa Kala on their wedding day in July 1979.
Photo: Dr. Vernard Lewis

Dr. Lewis has vivid memories of battling bed bugs in the 1980s at the prison.

“The inmates treated me pretty well, because if you disrespected me, you’d have to sit there with those bugs,” he says. “That’s a hard way to go — but prisons are hard. There aren’t any choir boys in there.”

Dr. Lewis says he tried to instill responsibility when training the inmate work crews he worked with at San Quentin.

“I would characterize my many years as a pest control operator as being hard work that demanded I employ many skills,” he says. “It enabled me to help many people in need.”

Academic liaison

Dr. Lewis says he is an urban entomologist. “IPM [integrated pest management] guys have been doing this for decades,” he says. “I have a foot in both worlds — the university and pest control.”

His university “foot” got the Villa Termiti built on the Berkeley campus, says Dr. Lewis. The 400-sq.-ft. wooden building — defined as “The House of the Termite” — is used to test for drywood termite detection and control methods.

Dr. Lewis “conducts” a termite inspection in 1991.

“Termites are by far the easiest insects to do research on, but with bed bugs, there is a lot more drama,” he says. “I got drafted into conducting bed bug research. I had a patent pending on a bed bug bait, but I couldn’t get anyone to license it.”

Over the past 26 years, Dr. Lewis has given more than 700 entomology presentations, an estimated 65 percent of them directed toward pest management professionals (PMPs) to assist them with their training and development programs.

Dr. Lewis now finds himself concerned with his faculty position at Berkeley.

“When I go, I’ll be the last termite expert in the system for a while,” he laments. While he hasn’t planned on taking on any work post-retirement, he says he might be swayed. “If someone could come up with a big enough project, and there’s financial incentive, I could be talked into working.”

Until that project materializes, Dr. Lewis has other plans: “When I retire, I might go back to bowling and golf. I also have a grandson who is high-energy to keep me busy.”

Dr. Vernard Lewis still crawls under the occasional house before retirement.

Did you know?

Dr. Lewis is a founding member of the Global Termite Expert Group, which was put together by the United Nations. The 20-member group from around the world worked together on projects from 2000-2008. ”Actually, I was the chairman of that group,” he says. “Maybe no one else wanted to be chairman; I was crazy enough to take it.”

Dr. Lewis was in Japan on sabbatical leave from the University of California in 2011, when that country was hit by a major tragedy. “I was a three-hour bullet-train ride away from the nuclear plant that caused a major part of the country’s problems,” he says. Dr. Lewis was stationed at Kyoto University, working as an urban entomologist.

Jerry Mix, a 2005 PMP Hall of Famer and editor-at-large, can be reached at pmpeditor@northcoastmedia.net.