We are sad to report the passing of former Rentokil technical manager, John Charlton.

John worked at Rentokil for 37 years and was hugely respected in the industry. John left Rentokil in 2007 and had been carrying out independent audits for the last 15 years. 

A long and noteworthy career

John started his career at the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries for Scotland, where he was involved in studies regarding warfarin resistance and the spread of anticoagulant resistance in Scotland.

His team later became known as the Land Pests Investigation Unit and would tackle things like American mink control, hooded crows and trap development. 

John later headed over to Rentokil Pest Control, where he was technical manager for a huge number of years and made a real impact in the business. 

Heavily involved with Rentokil's internal training and qualifications, John spent some time overseas carrying out training in places like Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, South Africa and China. 

For a long time John was BPCA's go-to contact at Rentokil for training queries.

In fact, John was quite the familiar face at BPCA HQ; he was on both the Servicing committee and the Fumigation committee (now known as FaCE).

He was also an Executive Board member from June 1998 to May 2010, and was awarded a BPCA Life Membership the same year his tenure on the Board came to an end. 

Life membership is an honour given to individuals who have demonstrated significant, sustained and high-quality service enhancing the reputation of the Association or wider industry. John certainly did that. 

He was a member of the Rodenticide Resistance Action Group (RRAG) and was also: 

• National Pest Advisory Panel (NPAP) representative at a ground-breaking Pest Management Alliance (PMA) meeting with RSPCA in 2010
• Member of the Pest Control Education Training Forum (PCETF) and the RSPH Advisory Panel
• Part of a group that set up the original resistance tail testing research group at Huddersfield University.

In 2015 he was inducted into the Pest Control News (PCN) Hall of Fame. The Hall of Fame recognises those individuals whose contributions have been ‘over and above the call of duty’ and so have made a lasting impression on the European pest control industry.

John was responsible for training countless technicians, many of whom are still in the industry to this day. He had a keen interest in natural history and had memberships of the Wildlife Trust and The Mammal Society.

John was an unforgettable influence on the industry and will be sadly missed by many.

Source: Online