[2007 Leadership Profiles] Jamie Ogle

Jamie Ogle, president of Lloyd Pest Control, is first and foremost a family man. He also is determined to win. Since taking the helm in 2000, he has continued the effort to build the respected, third-generation family business into a seven-branch, 275-employee, $21 million powerhouse in market-tough Southern California. Friends and competitors agree: Ogle, 39, represents the industry’s new generation of business leader.

Lloyd Pest Control is a big part of Ogle’s life, “but it’s more about his family than anything else,” said Arrow Environmental Services Vice President Stewart Lenner. “Jamie’s never going to ask you how business is first. He’s going to ask you, ‘How is your family? How’s everybody around you?’”

Yet, he is also “very competitive,” said Sprague Pest Solutions President and CEO Alfie Treleven. “He wants to win,” agreed Lenner. “He’s a very nice, very kind person, but I think when it comes down to business, he’s got a lot of strength,” added Western Exterminator Company President Michael Katz. “I view him as a very strong person who knows exactly what he wants and he’s willing to do what’s necessary to make it happen.”

A CHANGE OF PLANS

Jamie Ogle began working summers at Lloyd Pest Control when he turned 16 years old. His first job was janitor, but his favorite summer was spent as a mechanic’s assistant. “My dad would come down and say, ‘Hey, your grandfather wants to take you fishing. Do you want to work or go fishing?’ Fishing was always the choice,” he smiled. Spending time with his grandfather was wonderful, but after joining the company full-time he realized fishing served two purposes. “It got me and my grandfather out of my dad’s hair.”

Ogle acquired his applicator license when he was 18, and attended the University of California, Davis, majoring in managerial economics. He planned to work outside of the industry upon graduation, “knowing what it’s like to be an employee, not the son of the boss.” His father had encouraged Ogle and his brother to follow their own passions.

In the fall of 1990, his senior year, Ogle’s plan changed dramatically. His father, James Ogle Jr., a first-year 1989 Crown Leadership Award winner, was diagnosed with lymphoma.

“We didn’t know if my dad would live a year, two years, five years,” recalled Ogle. Survival rates for lymphoma today are high, but it was an unknown at the time of his father’s diagnosis. Being a family business, Ogle’s plan to work outside the industry was scrapped. He joined Lloyd upon graduating in April 1991. Ogle wanted to provide employees continuity if his father became unable to lead the business. With COO Herb Field, a 2001 Crown Leadership Award winner and 26-year Lloyd veteran, helping the firm run smoothly, Ogle spent time “doing everything that we do.” He worked as a general pest technician, a termite repairman, a termite fumigation helper, a general pest account manager and as a termite sales inspector.

In 1994, he became the company’s first marketing manager, and two years later was named termite department manager, allowing him “to cut my teeth on 25 percent of our business.” His father gave him “the space to make my own decisions and mistakes, and have my own successes so that I could learn,” Ogle recalled.

Once exposed to the corporate side of the business, Ogle decided further knowledge was needed to successfully run the company, which at that time had 200 employees. He attended the University of San Diego’s evening graduate business program. One of the highlights was developing a case study that compared Lloyd Pest Control and Sprague Pest Solutions, Tacoma, Wash. “I spent several days with the Trelevens and interviewed their management team,” said Ogle. “It was a great experience for me to compare and contrast our two companies.” Alfie Treleven agreed. “Jamie is a wonderful student of business, and he enjoys very much talking about…ideas.”

He took a short sabbatical to finish his MBA in 1999, then returned to share the corporate office with his father. “I was vice president of…nothing,” smiled Ogle, who managed special projects. After four months he realized, “we needed to do something else.” James Ogle Jr. retired at the close of 1999, and Jamie became president in 2000.

TIME OF TRANSITION

Quickly moving from “involved in the business” to CEO while retaining employee respect says a lot about Ogle, said Lenner, even if his taking of the reins did have some rough spots.

“Dad was very good about giving me space and would send the staff to me to make sure he wasn’t undermining me,” recalled Ogle. This was difficult for his father, who worked for the firm for 40 years and continued to work out of an office on the grounds. “He wasn’t involved any more, and yet he was still there. I didn’t have the experience or confidence to have him involved at that point.”

Ogle was particularly interested in having employees speak their minds about how things had gone in the past, and what they wanted done differently. “I ran a successful business, but it didn’t mean I wanted to maintain the status quo,” Ogle explained. “There were things I wanted to do differently, not necessarily better, just different in my own way.”

The company’s maxim, “Take care of the customers, take care of the employees, and everything else will take care of itself,” was a case in point. “I certainly believe in taking care of the customers and in taking care of employees,” agreed Ogle. “I’m not willing to leave the rest to just happening, I suppose.”

After six months, James Ogle Jr. moved out of the office. “It was good for both of us,” said the younger Ogle.

Jamie had “very definite ideas of what he wanted the company to look like and that required him to go in and make changes that were rather dramatic,” recalled Katz. It was a risk for the well-established company, but Jamie “had the strength of his convictions and he did what he felt was the right thing. It looks at this point like he knew what he was talking about.”

A NEW ERA

Improving operational efficiency and service delivery is Ogle’s mission. His focus is developing and sharing goals, providing employees tools to accomplish these goals, and holding them accountable. A big-picture perspective is one of the attributes that sets Ogle apart, said Lenner.

“Summer is actually a slower time for me, where it’s busier for the majority of the company,” he explained. “I’m here to cheerlead for the team. When we’re executing our plan, I stand out of the way and let them do it. We have talented people who have been here a long time and who can execute it. I try to make sure I stay focused on what our priorities are and contribute to our success for the month, the quarter and the year.”

Ogle’s approach is working. Lloyd Pest Control revenues have grown more than 50 percent during the last seven years. The firm’s new centralized call center and training facility, which also houses corporate offices, has dramatically increased operational efficiency. Combining branch resources “was a huge change” that caused initial skepticism, but the “economies of scale made great sense for us,” he said. Not only has the center improved quality control, but it allows the firm to focus on hiring good communicators who are best-suited for customer service. The facility also is the site of Lloyd Pest Control University, the firm’s extensive training program. New team members spend two months in classroom and field training, while continuing education programs keep employees up-to-date on industry developments. “Team members representing the company need to be competent and provide quality service, and that only can be accomplished through training and continuing training,” said Ogle. The program is led by Technical Director Scott Crowley, an 18-year Lloyd employee, with assistance from the quality control department. “Dad believed strongly in training, and we’ve continued to refine that process,” said Ogle.

The firm recently held a commercial kitchen “treasure hunt” to teach technicians the importance of quality inspections. “Dot” stickers were placed throughout the kitchen in places requiring inspection. Technicians had one hour to find the dots, and then were graded. “It was great to see the expertise of our technicians, and those dots not found provided an excellent teaching opportunity,” said Ogle, who also joined the hunt. “It was fun, but it was educational and provided technicians with a good experience to learn something, and for us to see where their skills were.”

Ogle also has taken a unique approach to employee safety. He recently had all 200 Lloyd service vehicles outfitted with DriveCam video systems, tiny windshield-mounted cameras that record before, during and after a traffic incident. Ogle had seen the technology demonstrated at an industry convention and thought it could help prevent vehicle accidents. He first outfitted trucks from the branch with the worst safety records. “In the first year, we saw a 90-percent reduction” in traffic incidents, he noted. “Now all trucks, including mine, have DriveCams.”

The DriveCam video systems allow the firm to proactively manage driving behavior, explained Ogle. It also has reduced auto, workers’ comp and general liability expenses, and in some cases has cleared drivers of wrongdoing, he said.

Lenner says the installation of the DriveCam systems is another example of what makes Ogle a leader. “To put that kind of financial [commitment] into your company to protect not only your drivers but everybody else (on the road) is just class,” Lenner explained. “You really can’t get any better as far as an owner taking care of your employees.”

Ogle strives to make employees feel part of an extended-family. More than 25 percent of Lloyd Pest Control’s employees have worked for the firm 10 years or more, and many others have at least seven years of service.

“I think Jamie is the epitome of what stewardship should be in a family business,” said Treleven, who has known Ogle’s parents more than 25 years. “Jamie has definitely carried on (the Ogle) tradition of giving a lot to the industry.”

“He’s really one of the bright young stars in our industry today,” summed up Katz, who has known Ogle since he was a child. “I’m really pleased he’s being honored. I think it’s well deserved.”

Lenner agreed. “He’s just a winner. It’s as simple as that.”

Give-and-Take Advances the Industry

Industry gatherings may offer insights to new trends, products and application methods, but Jamie Ogle most values the connections made with peers. He credits the industry’s “power of collective intelligence” in helping him develop professionally and successfully lead Lloyd Pest Control. “The network of people I met and have been able to become friends with has been very valuable to me,” he said.

The feeling is mutual. “He’ll sit down and listen to me with my four-and-a-half million dollar business, just as easily as he’ll sit down with (those running larger enterprises),” said Arrow Environmental Services Vice President Stewart Lenner. “That’s a tremendous attribute.”

“He does earnestly want to learn about how you do things,” added Sprague Pest Solutions President and CEO Alfie Treleven, citing Ogle’s “quiet competitiveness.” And he’s just as “happy to share what his company has learned over the years.”

Ogle has played leadership roles in the National Pest Management Association’s Leadership Development Group, QualityPro and Pest Control Operators of California. He also supports the Professional Pest Management Alliance, the consumer outreach arm of the National Pest Management Association. “To be able to pool our resources and have a voice is invaluable to the industry,” he explained. 

The Ogle File:

Company: Lloyd Pest Control

Headquarters: San Diego, Calif.

Position: President

Career highlights: Bachelor’s degree, University of California, Davis; master’s degree, University of San Diego; 23-year employee of Lloyd Pest Control; member of Vistage, an international organization of CEOs; Pest Control Operators of California; NPMA Leadership Development Group; QualityPro Board of Directors; Professional Pest Management Alliance; San Diego Employers’ Association; The Executives’ Association of San Diego; San Diego Chamber of Commerce; California Chamber of Commerce; and the Better Business Bureau.

Community: Executive Board Member, Peninsula YMCA; sponsor, Stephen’s Cancer Center; lead sponsor, San Diego schools’ Inventor’s Showcase; and board member and All-Star manager, Peninsula Youth Softball Association.

Personal: Wife Amy, daughter Sarah (10); son Charlie (5); enjoys golf, tennis, volleyball, reading and coaching.