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The 2026 PMP Hall of Fame dinner and induction ceremony took place Oct. 19 at the Gaylord Texan Resort & Convention Center in Grapevine, Texas. This year’s inductees are Mark Boyd, founder of Control Solutions Inc.; Bobby, Raleigh and Dennis Jenkins of ABC Home & Commercial Services; Frank Meek of Rollins; and the late Gene White of Rentokil. Visit the PMP Hall of Fame website.
For those who knew him, either from working side-by-side with him or sitting through one of his many technical presentations at a pest control industry event, the induction of Eugene “Gene” Donald White II, BCE, into the Pest Management Professional (PMP) Hall of Fame likely seems to be years overdue.
But no one could have predicted his sudden death at age 64, with heart failure after a surfing lesson while in Honolulu, Hawaii, for the Society for Vector Ecology 2022 International Congress. In fact, it is with some regret we are inducting him this year as our posthumous candidate, as we wish we could have him here to enjoy the accolades. Because there are so many accolades to share.
From athlete to entomologist
White was one of four children born to the Rev. E. Donald White and his wife, Peg; he also had a paternal
half-sibling. Born in Columbus, Ohio, and raised in Green, a city outside Akron, Ohio, White loved nature, art and being on the track and football teams. Green High School went undefeated in football his senior year, which led to a scholarship to Glenville State College (now University) in West Virginia.
In 1981, fresh from college with a biology degree and a minor in oral communications, White came back to Northeast Ohio to work as a technician with Orkin Pest Control — while also playing for the Canton Bulldogs, a semi-professional football team. As the story goes, a teammate also worked in pest control and got him into the now-defunct Metro Exterminators as a technical director. That position led him to interact with Bio-Serv, the distribution arm of Rose Pest Solutions (then known as Rose Exterminator Co.).
By 1984, he signed on with Rosefor the beginning of a long and fruitful career.
From managing the Rose office in Fort Wayne, Ind., to becoming a corporate trainer at the then-headquarters in Troy, Mich., the company also led to White settling down and becoming a family man. He married Nancy White (no relation!) in 1985, who worked for Able Pest Control, and had three daughters: Kelsey, Kyle and Karey.
Higher education
By the early 1990s, White felt a pull to further his education every time he attended the Urban Pest Management Conference at Purdue University. In 1993, he was accepted into Purdue for his master’s of science degree in entomology and moved his family to West Lafayette, Ind. He returned to Rose in 1996 after earning his degree.
Not only had White worked for a company that was founded in 1860 by PMP Hall of Famer Solomon Rose — and thus considered to be the oldest continuously run pest control firm in the United States — but his post-graduate work had another PMP Hall of Fame connection: Under the guidance of Dr. Tim Gibb, White was able to close a termite research project begun in the 1940s by Purdue legend Dr. John Osmun (Class of 1997).
He returned to Rose after graduation, staying until 2013, when then-Rentokil North America (now Rentokil-Terminix) hired him to be a technical director for its Central Market, from Canada to Mexico. He traveled extensively, training hundreds and eventually earning a promotion to technical director of all of Rentokil North America.
Worldwide influence
At the time of his passing, White was excelling in the position he had held since 2017, global director of vector management. It was a position created shortly after Rentokil Vector Disease Control International (VDCI), a holding company with the largest mosquito control and lake management service divisions in the U.S.
White’s combination of industry knowledge, educational expertise, sense of humor and an enthusiasm for helping people around him succeed made him the perfect candidate for the new role. Although mosquitoes and other vector pests were not his top specialty, he made it his business to learn as much as he could so he could best manage Rentokil teams focused on this service segment in 30 countries worldwide.
At the time of his passing, White left behind his wife, Janet, as well as two daughters, three stepchildren, and a combined 10 grandchildren. His daughter Kelsey preceded him in 2020. Two grandchildren and a great-grandchild have been born since.
Industry fraternity Pi Chi Omega, of which White was a longtime member, today offers the Gene White Field Excellence Grant, created with support from Rentokil Terminix, Burt’s Pest Control and the Indiana Pest Management Association. As a grant instead of a college scholarship, the intention is to “fund projects or career milestones like advanced skill acquisition, conference attendance, technical courses or new product/concept creations.”
White’s professional legacy lives on not only through the grant and through the hundreds of professional-level photographs of insects, wildlife and even business-themed “stock art” he took over the years, but through the hearts and minds of the many pest management professionals he helped train and encourage over his lifetime.
