Harlan is a retired military medical entomologist and former NPMA staff entomologist. The article notes that he first became fascinated back in the 1970s with the insects that are now the scourge of a growing number of American cities.
Harold Harlan, a retired military medical entomologist and former NPMA staff entomologist, was recently profiled on ABCnews.go
The article, titled The Bedbug Keeper notes that Harlan first became fascinated back in the 1970s with the insects that are now the scourge of a growing number of American cities.
Harlan quietly studied his bugs until the late 1990s, when bedbugs began to spread again, mostly in big cities. Those creepy-crawlers were creepy-crawling their way to becoming a long-term problem. That's when pest control experts and scientists started calling him.
"Because they were so rare, it was hard to find specimens to study. After it became known that I had a population that was never exposed to chemicals, university research and private laboratories wanted some of my bedbugs to compare susceptibility to pesticides," he said.
"I think I helped some of these people accommodate more quickly to what they need to know and do to help control bedbugs," said Harlan. "I pointed them to literature, I shared images and shared observations."
Source: ABCnews.go