First Person: My Succession Plan

Our companies started in 1981 in Indianapolis. They started with $2,000, one other person, one phone, a 175 square foot office and a burning ambition that focused on protecting stored products. This continues today some 40 years later with Fumigation Service & Supply, Inc., and Insects Limited (Insectslimited.com). FSS (FSSzone.com) that currently has more than 100 pest management specialists located in nine offices servicing from Nebraska to Pennsylvania and a world class pheromone technology business. We have organized fourteen international conferences on stored product protection called Fumigants & Pheromones, with over 3000 people attending from 60 countries and six continents. Our Fumigants & Pheromones Newsletter has a worldwide distribution. We are regular speakers on pest management programs around the country and abroad. We share through education.

 

I was asked by the United Nations (The Montreal Protocol) in 1995 to work on projects in developing countries to help eliminate the ozone depleting substance methyl bromide. This fumigant was used throughout the world to control insects and bacteria in stored commodities and soil. I have visited 78 different countries mostly teaching people how to protect stored products with alternative methods to eliminate this serious environmental contaminate.  

 

Pheromone Insects use chemical signals to communicate. A professor at Purdue showed me a pheromone trap for Indian meal moths in 1979. Eureka! … this was the beginning of an entrepreneurial experiment that today, 43 years later, has blossomed into an international business with modern techniques to monitor, control and manage insect pests. Insects Limited is a pheromone technology company that discovers new pheromone and sociochemical compounds and field test them for practical results. 

 

One of my most rewarding moments of my life occurred in 2018 when I retired after 44 years in the pheromone and fumigation business and we turned the businesses over to our sons. One piece of advice that I would like to pass on is that there are two ways to retire: One, you continue to go to the office most days and open the mail and walk around and greet the employees. The second option is not to go in at all. I chose the second option.

 

I have been married to Mary Beth Mueller for 45 years. She has been an intracule part of our family business. We have three children, (Pete, Tom and Francie) and six grandchildren. My hobbies include going to Purdue basketball games, fly fishing with my fellow entomology alumni in Rockbridge, Mo., carving duck decoys, hunting and playing with my grandchildren.

 

My future dream for the pest management industry is to establish an Innovation and Technology Center for Stored Product Protection at Purdue University. This begins with a two-day conference at Purdue’s Beck Agriculture Center, June 12-14, 2023.