Orkin

Orkin is an Atlanta-based company that provides residential and commercial pest control services. The company was founded in 1901 and became a wholly owned subsidiary when it was purchased by Rollins Inc. in 1964. Orkin has held research partnerships with universities around the country and with organizations like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) dating back to 1990 for pest biology research and pest-related disease studies. It has been ranked on Training Magazine's Top 125 list for its training programs since 2002.

History

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. Otto carried a number of measured amounts of poison in 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.