Billionaire Randall Rollins Dies At 88, Orkin Owner, GA Native

CARTERSVILLE, GA — Billionaire businessman R. Randall Rollins, whose family originally hails from northwest Georgia— and whose family ranch in Cartersville is the reason the proposed U.S. 411 Connector had to be re-routed — has died.

He was 88, according to an announcement on his company’s website.

Rollins was chairman of the board of Rollins Inc., the Atlanta-based parent company of Orkin and other pest-control services.

"The loss of Randall is felt profoundly, not only by our family, his friends and me, but also by generations of Rollins' employees and colleagues who had the privilege of knowing him during his over 70 years of devotion to the Rollins companies," said Gary W. Rollins, vice chairman and chief executive officer of Rollins, Inc.

According to The Rome News-Tribune, the proposed U.S. 411 Connector between Floyd County and Interstate 75 in Bartow County was blocked twice by the Rollins family. If it had gone through as planned, it would have cut through the center of the Rollins family ranch in Cartersville.

The connector, now called the Rome-Cartersville Redevelopment Corridor, is planned to extend from the U.S. 411/U.S. 41 interchange on Cartersville’s westside to I-75 north of the Budweiser brewery.

Rollins, Inc., which started as a broadcasting company in the 1940s, was founded by Randall Rollins’ father and uncle. The company grew and diversified over the years, and in 1964 engineered the purchase of Orkin Pest Control in what the Rollins website calls “the first leveraged buyout in American business history.”

Rollins has served on the boards of SunTrust Banks, Gold Kist, Dover Downs Gaming and Entertainment, and Dover Motorsports. He also served as a trustee of several educational institutions, including Berry College, Emory University, the Lovett School, and the Robert W. Woodruff Health Sciences Center Fund. Other beneficiaries of Rollins’ philanthropy include Young Harris College and the Winship Cancer Institute.