[PCT Leadership Winner] Jerome Goddard

There are many leaders in the pest control industry, but few have followed the circuitous career path of Dr. Jerome Goddard, an academic with a quick wit and quirky sense of humor and a pas-sion for insects. 
“Early in my career, I never dreamed that I would interface with the pest control industry,” he says. Yet, despite his surprise at his eventual role as an industry leader, even Goddard’s childhood interests pointed toward the world of bugs. As a young student, he was fascinated by biology and excelled in the subject. “I was just really interested in bugs and snakes and birds and plants,” he recalls.
The son of a college professor, Goddard was college-bound from the start and knew early on that he wanted to pursue a degree in biology. However, he was uncertain of where to focus his energies in the broad field of biological sciences. After two years at the community college where his father taught, Goddard transferred to the University of Mississippi and enrolled in his first entomology class. He quickly was swept away by his professor’s enthusiasm for the subject. “That one course and that one man, Dr. Paul Lago, is the reason I chose entomology,” he says.
Initially envisioning himself as a high school biology teacher, Goddard earned a 1979 bachelor’s degree in science education and a 1981 master’s degree in biology. Although his graduate program covered the broad spectrum of biological sciences, Goddard’s thesis focused on blow flies. As his interest in insects grew, Goddard found himself drawn as a moth to flame, so to speak, to the specialized field of medical entomology.
Goddard soon found a doctoral program at Mississippi State University that fit his interests. His research focused on ticks and resulted in a 1984 doctorate in medical entomology. And while it may seem obvious that Goddard lived happily ever after, becoming a star in his chosen field, that wasn’t initially the case. “I got my Ph.D., and I thought I was really hot,” he says. “I did some really good papers, and then I couldn’t get a job. It was humiliating!”
With a wife and baby at home, an unemployed Goddard was worried. Then the military called. An Air Force recruiter explained to Goddard that the service needed experts in medical entomology and signed Goddard up as a captain at Brooks Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas. “Even though I was the Gomer Pyle of the Air Force, it was one of the best things that ever happened to me,” Goddard says. He found the work fascinating as his area of expertise expanded from the bugs of Mississippi to pests that carry disease to troops stationed around the world. And his efforts were rewarded with recognition and awards, including Best Academic Instructor in the Residents in Aerospace Medicine Course at the USAF School of Aerospace Medicine and Company Grade Officer of the Year in 1988.
 
A CHILD OF THE SOUTH
Despite his positive experience as a military medical entomologist, Goddard longed to return to his home state. When an acquaintance sent him a job listing for a public health entomologist with the Mississippi Department of Health, Goddard saw his chance to go home and create a program in which he would set up and supervise entomological projects and vector control programs relating to public health, one of his passions. He also would have the opportunity to design and implement vector ecology programs and investigate insect-transmitted disease outbreaks.
While enjoying his new role as Mississippi’s first public health entomologist, Goddard asked a physician colleague if she knew of any good medical books about insects and insect-related health issues. When she replied that she was unaware of any such text, Goddard “asked if she thought there would be a need for that type of book, and she told me that she’d certainly buy one if it was out there. So I said, ‘I’ll write one!’”
Thus, Goddard conceived the idea for his best-known published work, the Physician’s Guide to Arthropods of Medical Importance (CRC Press), first published in 1993 and now in its fourth edition. Goddard’s global understanding of medical entomology, based on his career in the military, is evident throughout this book, which provides medical professionals with a plethora of information regarding typical and atypical responses to insect bites and stings.
However, having made the decision to write a text on the subject, Goddard found himself studying and learning detailed information from books, scientific papers and journals. “I became a bug nerd in the library, reading everything there is to know,” he says with a chuckle. “I was going to conferences and sitting at the front of the room, writing down everything the speakers said. At night, when people went out for dinner and dancing, I was in my room reading my notes from the day’s meetings as well as medical entomology textbooks.”
After three years knee-deep in books and journals, Goddard’s hard work and extensive research paid off. “With globalization of commerce, same-day air travel between continents, and military activity in the most remote parts of the world, there is increasing contact with arthropod species otherwise not commonly encountered,” the foreword to Goddard’s book states. “This text has come of age at a time when it is needed most. It will especially be valued by health care providers who find themselves in unknown territory, both geographically and medically.”
Although Americans are most concerned about reactions to and illnesses caused by insect bites and stings, Goddard notes in the preface to his text that not only are the historic vector-borne diseases, such as typhus, plague and yellow fever, still around, but new illnesses are de-veloping. For instance, Lyme disease was virtually unknown 25 years ago. And the adaptability of arthropods promises to make these disease issues a problem for many years to come.
The Physician’s Guide offers chapters on pathologic conditions caused by insects and the principles of treating those conditions. It continues with a chapter on arthropod identification and the symptoms of vector-borne disease, important information for PCOs to know and understand. The third major portion of the book discusses specific arthropods of medical importance in alphabetical order.
Goddard’s seminal text on medical entomology made him a pseudo-celebrity in the field. Speaking requests began rolling in for scientific conferences and environmental seminars. Before long, the pest control industry took notice. Goddard first spoke to the Georgia Pest Control Association and met Tommy Reeves, vice president of Oldham Chemicals Company. “Tommy befriended me and promoted me, which got my name out there. I guess the rest is history,” Goddard says.
Reeves is a true fan of Goddard, having known him for more than a decade through his appearances at local and regional pest control conferences. “Dr. Goddard is very credible,” Reeves says. “He is a team player who has the industry at heart. It doesn’t matter if you’re a one-truck company or a 150-truck company – Dr. Goddard treats everyone with respect.”
Since becoming familiar with the pest control industry, Goddard enjoys his work as a speaker and consultant. “I think it’s a wonderful group of people,” he says of those he’s met at industry events. “It’s one of the most rapidly changing industries I’ve ever encountered. It’s changing so fast, you can barely keep up.” He also notes the industry has marked extremes in quality that vary depending on location, education and training, and experience. This diversity is a welcome challenge to Goddard, who enjoys interacting with people from all regions and corporate cultures. He also values others in the industry as teachers, noting that “they’re out there in the trenches. I try to learn from them.”

A FULL LIFE
Goddard’s life today is busy and includes a variety of duties. His work as a medical entomologist for the Mississippi State Department of Health’s Bureau of Environmental Health takes up the majority of his professional time. However, he also serves as clinical assistant professor of preventive medicine and assistant professor of medicine at the University of Mississippi School of Medicine in Jackson. As an academician, Goddard serves on medical school committees, lec-tures to students and participates in medical research.
Working in the state health department, Goddard estimates that a third of his time involves identification of specimens for physicians, clinical laboratories and the public – what he considers “customer service.” Another third of his job centers on researching insects as they relate to human health. Fire ants, mosquitoes and ticks are Goddard’s primary research subjects because they tend to pose hazards to the largest number of people. The final third of his work involves public education. Since becoming a published author, Goddard has written many brochures and articles for public use in addition to speaking to citizen groups, such as garden clubs.
“A big part of my job is to communicate to both the medical community and to the citizens because I am a public servant,” he says. “I’m paid by the taxpayers of Mississippi, and they’re my clients. I’m responsive to their needs. If the Mississippi Pest Control Association asks me to speak, I speak for free anytime.”
 
NEVER A DULL MOMENT
Over the course of his 16 years of public service with the state, Goddard has seen and heard some strange things. And his coworkers, likewise, have seen and heard some strange things from Goddard’s office. Like the copperhead snake Goddard killed on a field expedition to collect ticks, brought back to his office and preserved in a pickle jar as “a kind of trophy.”
Unfortunately, the alcohol Goddard used in the absence of formaldehyde to preserve his trophy failed to prevent decomposition. Gases emitting from the rotting snake pressurized the jar. Goddard, knowing he had to relieve the pressure to prevent the jar from exploding, loosened the lid. Like a shaken can of soda, the jar’s contents sprayed out, along with a stench that sent nearby coworkers running from their offices. “To this day, people talk about that – Jerome blowing up a snake,” Goddard muses.
When he’s not exploding trophy snakes, interacting with the public, teaching or speaking to pest control associations, Goddard finds time to continue writing. One may expect titles such as Infectious Diseases and Arthropods (Humana Press, 2000) and “Experimental infection of lone star ticks with Rickettsia parkeri and exposure of guinea pigs to the agent” (Journal of Medical Entomology, 2005) from a scientist of Goddard’s standing. However, two of his most notable works do not appear in scientific journals or catalogs.
The Well of Destiny (Writers Club Press, 2001) tells a fictional tale of a scientist investigating an outbreak of a new strain of mosquito-carried encephalitis that may be the result of genetic engineering or bioterrorism. You Gonna Touch That? Disgusting Facts About Bugs (Xlibris Corp., 2004) is aimed at 7- to 11-year-olds and educates children about which bugs are poten-tially harmful and which ones just look scary. (Both books are available from www.amazon.com.)
Goddard’s newest novel, Vital Forces, soon to be released by TrebleHeart Press in Arizona, is about “a professor who discovers something about viruses that is so mind-boggling, so bizarre, so metaphysical that it shakes his logic-based world view to its very core. It’s a deeply philosophical and religious book, but in a fun format. I really like that kind of thing,” the author says.
Even Goddard’s scientific publications sometimes express his interest in philosophy. In The Anthropic Principle, String Theory and Multiple Universes in Light of the Scientific Method (Journal of the Mississippi Academy of Sciences, July 2005), Goddard explores “the scientific method and how we understand reality.” He indulges his passion for “deep, deep philosophical stuff” by reading ancient and Medieval philosophy in his spare time.
Goddard’s passion may be philosophy, but his greatest source of joy is his family. He describes his wife of 26 years, Rosella, as “an absolute saint,” a dedicated mother and volunteer. Jerome II is a graduate student at Mississippi College pursuing a master’s degree in math. Joseph is a student at Hinds Community College and plans to become a game warden or police officer.
While the future remains to be written, one thing is certain – as Goddard continues his work, doctors, citizens and pest control professionals alike can look forward to a more insights regarding the bugs that make us sick.