Most families talk about sports or the weather at Thanksgiving. The Kramers? They talk ants, roaches, and beavers.
For brothers Travis and Joe Kramer, pest control isn’t just a job—it’s a family tradition. Their father, Charlie Kramer, spent 30 years protecting UMD from pests of all kinds and helped shape FM’s pest control program into what it is today.
In 1977, Charlie was a horticulture major working as a groundskeeper when he was asked to take over a newly vacated pest control role. “It was four grades higher than my grounds position, so I said OK,” he recalls. With guidance from an entomology professor, he stepped in as the university’s sole pest control operator—a role he held until retiring in 2009.
“I used to tell people I was the pest control operator, but I had a staff of 40 PhD entomologists to back me up,” Charlie jokes. By bringing pest control in-house, he saved the university tens of thousands of dollars in just the first year. Charlie didn’t know it at the time, but he was also paving the way for his sons to follow.
Cultivated Curiosity
For Travis and Joe, fascination with the natural world started young—and never really stopped.
“I was always dragging home turtles or snakes or whatever else I could find,” says Travis. Joe also had a fascination for anything that moved and an expert at home to explain it all. “I could take a bug to my dad, and he knew what it was,” says Joe. “It wasn’t just ‘that’s a grasshopper.’ He’d tell me what it did, where it lived, even what kind it was.”
That curiosity, and the nurturing of it, laid the foundation for their careers.
Travis joined FM in 2010 after a stint in commercial pest control. Joe, the newest recruit, came aboard earlier this year with his own background in the field. We definitely bring the job home, Joe admits, “The rest of the family kind of gets annoyed when we start talking shop at dinner.”
But no one should be surprised. What began as play grew into professional instinct sharpened by experience.
Adventures in Pest Control
No two days in pest control are the same, and the Kramers wouldn’t have it any other way.
“Every day is an adventure, “ says Travis. “You see a lot of stuff you don’t really see in the outside world.”
That might mean dealing with a dam built by beavers in Campus Creek that threatened to flood a nearby building filled with research equipment or helping prevent wildlife conflicts at university events.
Joe recently worked with entomologist Eric Malcolm to help relocate a large swarm of honeybees that settled on a column of the Reckord Armory. “That was quite a splash in my short time here,” he said.
Charlie has stories from decades in the field – some more about solving puzzles than eliminating pests. He once responded to a report of a cat trapped in the crawl space of the Rossborough Inn. After crawling into the tight, dusty space and finding no tracks, he traced the noise to a nearby office, where he discovered the source: A computer’s Halloween-themed screen saver that periodically meowed.
Education Was—and Is—Key
Behind the unpredictable moments and the war stories is a deeper mission. For the Kramers, pest control is about more than getting rid of bugs–it’s about solving problems and making the campus safer for everyone.
“A big part of our job is educating our customer base,” said Travis. “You do more inspecting and evaluating than actual treatment. And when it’s working, you’ve got people helping you with the solution.”
Though officially retired, Charlie still makes occasional appearances on campus. He recently returned to lead a training session on ticks and stinging insects—a role that reflects both his knowledge and the respect he’s earned.
The tools may have changed, but the mission remains the same. From Charlie’s early days as a one-man crew to the teamwork his sons bring to the field today, the Kramer legacy continues—quietly protecting campus, one pest at a time.