AuditReady"s founder L. Ernest Otter, III is a second generation pest management professional and has worked on the food industry for almost 40 years. Specializing in Organic management strategies and third-party food safety certifications.  Ernie also serves as a food safety consultant, assisting clients to develop food safety prerequisite and training programs.

Structural Pest Management

Ernie's experience in the pest management  industry includes all aspects of pest management. He maintains 11 categories of state certification and is licensed in Michigan and Ohio. He was among the first to identify bed bug re-insurgence in the State of Michigan. Ernie was also the fist to identify an active infestation of Brown Recluse Spider in the State of Michigan and worked with Michigan State University, Michigan Department of Agriculture and the Michigan Department of Public Health to bring this information to the healthcare community's attention.

Organic Structural Pest Management Since the early 1980's, Ernie has worked closely with Eden Foods of Clinton Michigan in their quest to develop organic strategies for food processing. Eden had then worked for 20 years with the farmers that supply their products to develop accepted practices and standards for organic agricultural production. After all this work, it seemed counter productive to bring these organic agricultural products into a processing facility where traditional pesticides were used. Eden was interested in developing standards to defined the requirements for structural pest management in facilities that process and handle organic products.

In 1997, Eden Foods sponsored Ernie to attend the 13th Annual International Federation of Agriculture Movements (IFOAM) Scientific Conference to resent a his paper An Introduction to Organic Structural Pest Management (OSPM).