PMP Hall of Fame profile: Dr. Harold Harlan, BCE

Dr. Harold Harlan, BCE

Dr. Harold Harlan, BCE, grew up in a large family that did not have a lot of money. He worked hard to earn scholarships to pay for college, where he planned to major in agriculture. But as fate would have it, one class changed the course of his life.

“Dr. Paul Freytag introduced me to entomology in a class I took during my junior year of undergraduate college. He made that course so interesting,” he recalls. “I didn’t know if I could even major in entomology, so I asked. I promptly changed my major, and the rest, as they say, is history.”

After changing his major to entomology in 1965, he earned his bachelor’s degree from The Ohio State University in 1967. A year later, he was drafted into the U.S. Army. He learned he could become an Army Entomologist if he earned his master’s degree. “I met those goals and had a successful 25-year active-duty Army career, retiring in 1994,” he reports.

Dr. Harlan’s career did not end there, however. In 1994, he became an adjunct professor for the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences. He gave invited lectures and lab sessions in its Tropical Medicine Courses annually through 2017.

In addition, Dr. Harlan has been an active member of the Entomological Society of America (ESA) for 56 years; his involvement extends to symposia, testing and outreach and service on several committees. Most notably, he coined the term Associate Certified Entomologist (ACE), and helped develop related requirements and procedures for it, as well as the Board Certified Entomologist (BCE) certification.

The ACE certification is designed for professionals whose training in entomology has been achieved through continuing education, self-study, and on-the-job experience, whereas a college degree is required for BCE certification.

Dr. Harlan as a soldier, left, and a (high school) civilian, right. PHOTO: DR. HAROLD HARLAN

Career-defining fascination

Despite these achievements, Dr. Harlan is best known for his work with bed bugs. His fascination with Cimex lectularius took off while in the Army, as he acquired his first population in the Fort Dix barracks in Pemberton Township, N.J.

“I had run into bed bugs as a kid, but never paid much attention. My parents had unique ways of dealing with them,” he says, adding that the family’s remedy of choice — kerosene — worked well for the times.

That changed in 1973, when trainees from one of the barracks showed up at the clinic seeking treatment for itchy bites. Some of them mentioned a crawling insect.

“I was an entomologist with preventive medicine at that time,” he recalls. “So, it was my job to figure out what this is and what we do about it.”

Dr. Harlan became fascinated with bed bugs, collecting some in a jar with some loose cardboard or tissue so they had a place to hide — because he noticed they seemed to want to hide — and covered the jar with a screened lid so they could not get out.

“To feed them,” he says, “I just turned the jar upside down on my arm or my leg and let them feed as long as they wanted.”

He kept the population and took them with him when he relocated for his military work and later civilian jobs.

“When I was going to graduate school, I didn’t pay much attention to them,” he says. “But my Ph.D. advisor had worked with bed bugs before, so I built up the population and he was able to use them in his classes.”

Dr. Harlan was happy to share what is known today as the Harlan strain. They are still widely used as a “susceptible” strain in insecticide resistance research because they have had very little exposure to pesticides for more than 40 years, and are typically much less resistant to chemicals than “wild caught” bed bugs.

Dr. Harlan still enjoys sharing his entomological knowledge. PHOTO: DR. HAROLD HARLAN

Providing insight

In December 1996, Dr. Harlan was hired as the National Pest Management Association’s (NPMA’s) staff entomologist, a position he held until December 2005. The job “opened a lot of opportunities for me,” he says.

Early in 1997, he began to get questions about bed bugs from NPMA member companies, researchers and even the public. “The questions and information requests about bed bugs quickly ballooned,” he says. “It turned out I was fortuitously placed there to help a bunch of folks.”

His interest in bed bugs continues to this day. He is especially interested in their potential to transmit human diseases.

Cultivating interest

After leaving the NPMA, Dr. Harlan was hired as a Department of Defense Civilian Senior Entomologist at the Armed Forces Pest Management Board, a job he held until he retired in 2013. While there, he gathered and developed most of the text content in its Living Hazards Database.

Dr. Harlan and his wife, Norma, have been married for 56 years and share two sons. For 33 years, he was an active adult leader for Boy Scout Troop 768 in Millersville, Md. In addition, he helped organize, staff and supply specimens and technical support for an Insect Study Merit Badge booth at six Boy Scouts of America National Jamborees held every four years from 1989 to 2010.

“Several co-workers and I designed, solicited and donated funding for, and purchased, several thousand special patches that we then gave out to anyone who visited that booth,” he says. “The bulk of that funding was generously donated by many PMPs, their related companies, and suppliers.”

Dr. Harlan remains active in the pest management industry, giving free public presentations on various critters upon request, consulting on pests and pest-generated allergens, and helping revise the BCE core and Medical and Veterinary qualifying exams.