Quick Facts
Biography
Orville Wayne Rollins (1912–1991) is the co-founder, with his younger brother John W. Rollins, of Rollins Inc., the US's largest pest control conglomerate.
Early life
Orville Wayne Rollins was born in Ringgold, Georgia, in 1912, the son of John William Rollins and Claudia Nace Rollins, a farmer father and a schoolteacher mother.
Career
Rollins worked for at Standard-Coosa-Thatcher, a textile mill in Chattanooga, Tennessee for 15 years, then for the Hercules Power Company as a TNT supervisor.
He returned to Ringgold in 1945, and with his wife and younger brother began to rebuild a mineral springs resort. He then started a radio station to provide cheaper advertising for his brother’s Virginia automobile dealership. Rollins Broadcasting was formed in 1948, and grew to control ten radio and four television stations.
In 1964, with company annual revenues of $9 million, he borrowed $60 million in the first leveraged buyout in the US to buy Orkin from its family owners, and move into the pest control business.
In 1986, he received a Horatio Alger Award for his "rags-to-riches" life story.
Personal life
He was married to Grace Crum Rollins. She was born on 22 September 1910 and died on 8 August 2009, aged 98.
He had two sons, Gary Rollins and Randall Rollins.