[PCT Leadership Winner] Ed Bordes

 New Orleans’ famous French Quarter has stood the test of time, delighting visitors for generations. Helping to protect that legacy is Ed Bordes, Jr., director of the New Orleans Mosquito & Termite Control Board, a role in which he serves as the city’s termite "czar" as a principal cooperator in the USDA’s Operation Full Stop, the historic area’s aggressive termite management program.

"This is a great place to be affiliated with the pest control industry because New Orleans is the city of insects," Bordes says. And that makes it a great place for someone like Bordes, who has both the know-how and passion to help maintain the French Quarter, a job that he considers the defining project of his career.

LOUISIANA ROOTS. Bordes’ own history is intimately tied to the region he serves. With a French Basque ancestry, Bordes is a New Orleans native who traces his family’s connection to the area back to his great-grandfather, a Civil War veteran. As a child, Bordes enjoyed "great food, great music and great experiences. I can’t imagine the world without Mardi Gras."

Bordes earned a bachelor’s degree in entomology and zoology from Louisiana State University and a master’s degree in public health from Tulane University, giving him the credentials and education needed to oversee the area’s considerable pest control needs. He gained practical experience when he began working for Thompson-Hayward Chemical Co. in 1956 and moved into the pest control industry as an entomologist for his father’s company, Custom Fogging and Superior Pest Control, in 1960.

Yet Bordes developed a strong work ethic long before beginning his professional career. Bordes’ first work experience was for his father, who owned several restaurants and bars. As an 8-year-old, he started his days at 5:00 a.m., cleaning restrooms, kitchens and dining rooms. "Working for my daddy was not easy," Bordes recalls. "He’d work me to death."

In fact, Bordes might not have gone to college had his father not demanded that he get an entomology degree in order to help expand the family business. "My dad had a very dominant personality," Bordes says. "When I went into the Marine Corps and went through basic training the drill instructor broke most of the recruits down into a pile of dung, but his verbal attacks didn’t impact me. He said, ‘How come I don’t have an effect on you?’ I said, ‘Sir, you’ve never met my father.’"

Despite Bordes’ professional introduction to the pest control industry, his entrepreneurial spirit led him to pursue opportunities in real estate investment and sales. From a family of business owners – only one of his father’s five brothers didn’t own a company – it seemed natural to Bordes to strike out on his own. "Wherever there’s a buck, you’ve got to find it," he says. "I was building houses and running a pest control business at the same time." His construction experience also allowed Bordes to better assess structures’ pest control problems because "when you’ve poured slabs and built foundations, you know what’s going on underneath that structure."

In 1986 Bordes became the chief administrator for the New Orleans Mosquito Control Board, which is responsible for the city’s mosquito, rodent and termite control programs. His work to protect the historic French Quarter from termite destruction started eight years ago and has involved cooperation with various state and federal agencies, chemical manufacturers and pest management professionals. He also served as an assistant adjunct professor of public health and tropical medicine at Tulane University and as a consulting entomologist for Environmental Pest Management.

During his long career, Bordes also has served in a variety of volunteer positions, including chairman of the Technical Committee for the Louisiana Governor’s Formosan Termite Task Force; regional director of the American Mosquito Control Association; president of the Louisiana Mosquito Control Association; president of the Gulf States Council of Wildlife Fisheries and Mosquito Control; and president of the East New Orleans Chapter of Rotary International. He has had more than 20 scientific studies published in trade journals and has received numerous awards and honors for his contributions to the industry.

IMPORTANT WORK. With termites and other insects rampant in New Orleans, causing damages second only to hurricanes, Operation Full Stop is an outstanding example of collaboration between city and federal officials, manufacturers, university researchers, private businesses, and the public. Bringing together all the resources available through these various groups, the program is the largest, most diverse coalition ever to address a common urban pest control problem.

Bordes combines the best termite control products and technologies with experienced pest control professionals to help ensure that applications are effective and will work in New Orleans’ environment. He attributes his success in running the program to a combination of persistence and collaboration. "I never went it alone," he says. "I allied myself with civic groups, government agencies and university personnel. And certainly luck has something to do with it."

New Orleans’ unique termite problems are due to the city’s location in a region of Cypress swamps. Humidity and average annual rainfall of 60 inches also contribute to the omnipresent insect population. Bordes notes that all introduced insect species become native within a few years due to the area’s insect-friendly climate and ecosystem.

When Bordes started his pest control career in the 1950s, mosquito fogging was the local industry’s focus. At the time, salt marsh mosquitoes were so thick on the city’s Canal Street they made life miserable both outside and inside the street’s homes and businesses. Lack of air conditioning meant that residents could choose to swelter or open their windows and battle the mosquitoes. The resulting citizen outcry led to the city’s mosquito population control efforts.

Although Bordes says that pest control professionals play an important public health role in fighting the mosquito population and reducing the incidence of West Nile virus and other mosquito-borne illnesses, he cautions that reckless spraying of pesticides only results in resistant insects. For this reason, he espouses the source reduction approach as a better long-term solution. In addition, he urges local pest control companies to communicate about the chemicals and techniques they use in order to avoid cross-resistance problems.

"I’ve spent my life killing insects," Bordes says. "What I liked about running my own business was the opportunity to really help people. I think that’s the greatest contribution you can make as a PCO. I loved doing what I was doing, but I got bored." Since taking on the city’s termite control efforts, Bordes has found a renewed sense of purpose. "Our termite work in the French Quarter started a whole new career for me. It has been very gratifying to help protect the French Quarter. We’ve been able to accomplish something really significant."

WHAT’S NEXT? At 65, Bordes has no plans to leave the city with its 18,000 historic structures to preserve. "I like the fact that I can hardly go anywhere where I don’t know somebody," he says. "I think that’s one reason I’ve been so successful getting things done in the French Quarter. People know me." Bordes intends to be around at least until Operation Full Stop is complete, musing that recent health problems have made him consider his goals and left him with a strong desire to see this project to its end.

And his friends and colleagues are glad that Bordes isn’t planning to retire yet. "Ed Bordes is Mr. Insect," says Stephen Schulkens, public information director of the French Quarter’s Louisiana State Museum, a historic building where the Louisiana Purchase was signed. "He’s the quintessential New Orleanean at heart. I don’t think many cities have someone in that position with such a stellar reputation."

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Bordes-Style Leadership

During his almost 50-year career, Ed Bordes, Jr. has developed and practiced a brand of leadership that has helped him become a local community icon. His formula is simple:

• Seek out the opinions of those who think differently than you do. "I’ve always tried to go out and find the best people I can who are not diametrically opposed to my thinking, but who aren’t afraid to speak up if they disagree with me. I want dissenting opinions."

• Give people an opportunity to succeed and a stake in the outcome of a particular project. "I allow my staff to do the things they do best. Everyone has to have a vested interest in the task."

• Don’t micromanage. "I’m not the kingpin, just one of the team. That’s the bottom line."

• Build coalitions and collaborate. To create the cooperative program needed for Operation Full Stop, "the industry was the easy part for me because so many people have known me for so long. Getting the State people on board and the commissioner of agriculture was a more challenging task, but in the end everyone worked together. We’ve been able to bring the industry and the government closer together."

• Make the most of your experience. "When you bring a group together for a project like this (Operation Full Stop), few have had more time in the field than I have. That’s one of the benefits of growing old. You can’t earn it until you’ve done it. There’s a degree of trust and respect you command as a result of your experience."

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Formosan Termites: Unwelcome Immigrants

Termites like New Orleans for the same reasons visitors do: It has some of the best food in the world, it has hundreds of old buildings to explore, it is a major port city, and it has a nice, warm climate.

Too bad for the termites; they are not the type of tourists New Orleans wants to host. For the last 50 years, aggressive Formosan termites have been making a meal of the Crescent City, and the problem has grown to epic proportions. As residents have witnessed, neither homes nor museums, nor the boundaries between them, are being held sacred.

Thankfully, city officials are not standing idly by while the Formosans, along with native subterranean termites, go about their business. An estimated $15 million is spent each year by city agencies alone to defend and reclaim its grounds and buildings, not to mention its trees, historic sites, and infrastructure, from the Formosan termite. Another $211 million is spent by city residents and businesses trying to ward off Formosans, according to the Louisiana Pest Control Association.

One individual who has been at the forefront of this fight has been Ed Bordes, Jr., the director of the city’s Mosquito and Termite Control Board (MCB). It’s his belief that termite control, especially Formosan termite control, is an important challenge to be dealt with and overcome in the "City That Care Forgot."

"We have the most severe infestation of Formosan termites in the world," said Bordes, who adds that New Orleans’ colonies may contain up to 60 million termites. "With those numbers, any control system you have out there is going to be challenged."

According to Bordes, the Formosan termite, native to China, first came into New Orleans in the early 1940s, from three major entry sites. One was at the 8th Naval District in Algiers, a naval base located on the west bank of the Mississippi River, east of the French Quarter. It is believed that ships carrying materials infested with Formosan termites returned from the Pacific to this base in the early 1940s, after World War II.

The second major entry of Formosans is said to have occurred in a similar fashion, at Camp LeRoy Johnson, located on the shore of Lake Ponchartrain north of the French Quarter. A third entry point has been identified at the Port of Embarkation, where returning civilian ships likely brought Formosans home along with the passengers.

Although the Formosans came into the city in the early 40s, it took until 1966 for the Formosan termite to be identified in New Orleans, says Bordes. Today Formosan termites are established in 27 parishes in the state, according to figures from the Louisiana Pest Control Association. The Formosans are attacking not only homes and buildings, but also many of the city’s crop of oak trees, which is considered the largest standing crop of live oaks in the United States. Officials believe up to 50% of the trees may be infested.

What’s worse, the Formosans have also attacked the city’s infrastructure. They’ve been found gnawing on such things as creosote utility poles, underground telephone cables, underground concrete vaults, traffic control switch boxes, plastic pool liners, railroad ties, lime mortar and seals on high pressure water lines. Bordes’ main concern is what could come next.

"I’ve surveyed termite scientists, and they told me that Formosan termites will become an agricultural pest," said Bordes. "The bottom line is we have to stop it at this point in time and address it while it’s an urban pest and not an agricultural pest."

And if anyone is up to the job, it’s Ed Bordes, one of the country’s leading Formosan termite control experts.