My Education From Dr. Robert (Bobby) Corrigan

In my last post I detailed the genesis story of my entry into the field of nuisance wildlife management as a green horn pest management technician and how my now 16+ years of success is due to my constant pursuit of education during all stages of my career.

I attribute a majority of the education to four great men, last week it was Ward Combs II. Were it not for Ward’s passion for educated and highly trained employees, I would likely not have come to learn of the preeminent leader in rodent behavior, biology, and management. This week we will follow the path laid before me by Dr. Robert “Bobby” Corrigan.

During one of the training sessions held by Presto-X in our small Mason City, Iowa branch location, I listened to a story about a researcher in New York City who was known to lay perfectly still in the trash laden alleys of NYC in order to witness first hand the behavior and habits of the prolific resident rat populations. I was baffled at the time that I had not thought to do that in some of my accounts. 

Let me backup the story a bit…

In my early pest management career path, I was a route technician in charge of around 84 various commercial locations in the Minneapolis area. One of my “larger” clients was a high-end grocer who catered to affluent neighborhoods and gastronomes. In the eyes of their shoppers, the rich dark wood shelving, immaculate produce, deli, meat, seafood, and bakery sections, sharply dressed staff, drive up grocery loading, and even carpeted aisles justified the markup on groceries in contrast to the local discount grocer down the street.  What that customer mindset did not justify though was the presence of emboldened mice that scurried frantically from one set of shelves to another. 

I had managed to achieve success in controlling and managing populations in a few of the stores, but struggled immensely in some others. One store in particular had a very difficult problem in the frozen food section of that store. I had managed to achieve temporary control in the usual areas (bakery, bread aisle, snack section, and loading docks) but was struggling being able to achieve control in this freezer lined section of the store. I could never find any nesting material under the freezers when we took the lower trim panels off, and rarely found any droppings or food remnants, but week after week we would receive phone calls about sightings from employees, vendors, and even shoppers in this section.

After hearing about Dr. Corrigan’s unconventional techniques, I planned that night to “camp out” in the frozen food section and watch to see if I could notice anything that would help solve my issue.

I sat for at least an hour, trying to stay focused on the aisle and not get distracted by the late night shoppers or employees. Sometime in that first hour I saw a mouse about mid way down the aisle dart from under the left side row of freezers to the right side, run about 10 feet towards me, then squeeze under the trim board of freezers on the right side of the aisle. I noted that the mouse’s tail seemed to be “crimped” half way down at almost a 90 degree angle like it had been folded and creased. I continued to watch, as other random mice ran back and forth over the next 45 minutes, until I saw the crimped tail mouse again. This time he emerged from the left hand aisle where he had the first time for only a second, and then went back under the freezer he came from. No more than a minute later he emerged from under the right side freezers and quickly went back under.

I thought the hour was starting to affect my perceptions. How could this crimped tailed mouse have gotten from the left side column of freezers to the right side so quickly without crossing the open aisle at some point? I continued to watch the aisle hoping to see the crimped tail mouse again and did not have to wait long watching his cousins before he appeared yet again. He did almost the same exact movement pattern again in reverse. Emerging from the left hand cooler trim plate, then scurrying back under the plate from which he came, only to appear shortly afterwards from the right hand line of coolers.

I wrote up a report of my findings and sent a copy to my branch manager and the client’s store manager hoping I would not be thought of as a fool.

By morning I awoke to an email in my inbox from the client’s store manager saying she had forwarded it to maintenance to look into the matter further. After three long days, the maintenance staff reported back that they had discovered after looking at old blueprints that there were long abandoned access tunnels under that section of store that were used to run utility lines throughout the store decades ago. 

That night, myself and some other company technicians who drove in from other regions spent hours in the tunnels under the floor of this store setting bait stations and traps throughout. Within 3 weeks we had stopped getting calls about mouse sightings. 

At that point, Dr. Corrigan became a deity in my eyes and I sought out every article, text book, lecture notes, and training session of his I could find. If I am being honest, I would almost have called myself a Dr. Corrigan fan boy. 

Soon after I solved the mouse problem at this store, my time at Presto-X ended and it would be another half decade before I came back to the rodent side of the pest management industry. By the time I had reentered as an employee at Adam’s Pest Control in Medina, Minnesota, Dr. Corrigan was the undisputed go to resource for all things rodentia. 

My first year back to the annual Minnesota Pest Management Association’s conference, Dr. Corrigan held a lecture regarding IPM (Integrated Pest Management) techniques and how exclusion is just as, if not more important than, trapping and baiting. I was so impressed and had so many questions after the presentation that I stood in line sheepishly for half an hour to shake his hand and tell him about my grocery store adventure. And then I did the craziest thing I think anyone has ever asked Dr. Corrigan to do… I asked him to sign a wooden mouse trap for me with a sharpie. I was officially a Dr. Bobby Corrigan fan boy.

As I continued to work for Adams Pest Control for the next three years, I took on some “mega structure” accounts with rodent problems that I used a majority of Dr. Corrigan’s tactics in to achieve success in.  That work, and my overall passion for the industry were recognized by the leadership in Adam’s and the leadership team nominated me for an award from the national pest management association. I was passed up for the award (told it was more political than anything) but the owner of the company said he would still fulfill my wish I had if I had won and was awarded a trip to the national conference in Florida. That wish was for a second signed mouse trap, only this time from Mickey Mouse. 

That fall, Todd Leyse, the owner of Adams Pest Control came back from the weeklong conference and handed me a signed mouse trap by Mickey Mouse himself, and I placed it affectionately next to Dr. Corrigan’s trap on my desk.

Todd Leyse would spend the next 18 months watching me doggedly seek his affection and approval, only for me to in the end betray his tutelage and confidence in my pursuit of shallow fame, an empty dream, and even emptier promises. 

But that my readers, is for next week.

Till next time… see ya folks...