|
|
During WWII Holder served as a corpsman in the U.S. Navy in the Pacific Theater, where he was among the first to mix DDT, which was aerially sprayed on the island of Saipan. Holder was interviewed about that experience by David Fincannon for a video segment that appears on "The Greatest Generation and the Modern Pesticide Revolution." In the video, Holder said U.S. bombing had snapped the sugarcane, allowing sugar to seep into the ground and that “the flies were so thick you couldn’t open your mouth.” However, two hours after the DDT had been sprayed not a fly was in sight, Holder recalled.
Following the war, Holder went to work for the U.S. Public Health Service in Galveston, Texas, where he performed typhus surveys and rodent control services. Because of that training he was permitted to purchase 1080 (a.k.a. sodium monofluoryl acetate), and began doing “freelance” rodent work on weekends and in evenings. After removing rodents from a Galveston grocery store, officials from the grocery store chain were so impressed they hired Holder to service all of the company’s 30 stores in southeastern Texas. So, in 1947 Holder and his family moved from Galveston to Houston and he opened Holder’s Pest Control. 
The company maintained steady growth throughout the 1960s and 70s. Darrell Hutto, president of Horizon Professional and Consulting Services, Houston, Texas, worked for Holder’s from 1965 to 1977, and considers Lonnie Holder a mentor and a second father. “He’s had a big influence on me because of the guidance, leadership and principles he instilled in me. Not a day goes by when I don’t use or reflect on what he taught me.”
Hutto said Holder set a high standard for professionalism and service. “We got so busy that we had to turn business away, but he said ‘I would rather turn you down than let you down. If you can't do it right, then don’t do it,' he would say,” recalled Hutto.
Lonnie’s son Leo Holder worked for his father and later opened End-O-Pest Termite & Pest Control, and Lonnie’s grandson Ronnie Holder, is still involved in the pest control industry as product manager for general insect control and commercial markets, BASF. Ronnie Holder also recalled his grandfather’s commitment to improving the industry’s image. “Even back in the 1960s his technicians always wore uniforms and drove trucks that were marked and lettered. He tried his best to promote a positive image for our industry at a time when our industry’s image was in the toilet.”
In the 1970s Holder’s Pest Control became a part of Copesan Services, and in 1983 Lonnie Holder sold the company to Copesan. In his retirement, Holder stayed active, serving as a junior high and senior high school substitute teacher as recently as last year. “He loved teaching young people,” Ronnie Holder recalled. “He would always try to teach them something about life.”
Services for Lonnie Holder will be held Wednesday at 10 a.m. at:
Trinity Church of Christ
110 West Jefferson St.
Trinity, Texas 75862
No information on where to send memorial contributions was available yet.