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Sixty-two years ago, James "Al" Ogle prowled Downtown San Diego, armed with a .22-caliber rifle and a determination to wipe out the rats and mice inhabiting almost every business. He probably didn't realize it at the time, but Ogle also was building a dynasty.
Today, his son James "Jim" Ogle heads a multimillion-dollar business that not only kills rats and mice, but has added termites, ants, spiders, fleas and other pests to its eradication list.
Lloyd Pest Control, the company Al Ogle bought for $125 during the Great Depression, billed $11 million last year. From one man afoot armed with a rifle, it has grown to more than 300 employees, a fleet of 225-plus vehicles, and a growing client list that recently topped 24,000. Now the largest locally owned pest extermination company in San Diego County -- out of an estimated 125 -- it is expanding into Orange County.
Al Ogle worked as a milkman in Los Angeles and on the assembly line at the Ford Motor Co. plant in Long Beach before moving to San Diego in the 1930s. After buying the foundering pest extermination company, he soon became known to local businessmen as Downtown's Pied Piper.
Working alone out of an office at Fifth Avenue and Broadway, he shared a secretary with the doctor next door and stored his equipment in the garage of the family home.
Today, Lloyd Pest Control has five offices in San Diego County and one in Santa Ana.
Al Ogle died two years ago. Son Jim is getting ready to retire and turn the business over to his son, James "Jimmie" Ogle, who now...