- March 28, 2024
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Mallory Molter was a sophomore in college in late 2012 when her father, Danny Molter, called her into the family pest control business.
“He said 'you have to come home,'” recalls Molter, a student at State College of Florida in Bradenton. “'I want to retire.'”
Despite her studies, the younger Molter jumped at the chance to help run Bradenton-based Molter Pest & Wildlife Control, a $1.1 million, 12-employee firm. For one, it was another opportunity to hang around her dad. “He was my best friend,” says Molter. “We did everything together.”
Danny Molter, an entrepreneur-inventor, business owner, real estate investor and longtime Bradenton area business and civic leader, died June 3 of cancer. He was 63 years old.
A onetime Manatee County Sheriff's Deputy, Molter was on the founding boards of two Bradenton-based community banks: Gold Bank and American Bank. He supported Manatee High School baseball, and was also on several advisory boards, including the Salvation Army and Florida Highway Patrol. A Bradenton native and Manatee High School graduate, Molter was a certified entomologist, which he used to launch the pest control business in 1976.
Molter also came from a family of inventors. One of Molter's inventions, Extend-O-Drain, is sold in more than 3,500 Lowe's and Home Depot stores. Extend-O-Drain is a drain extension kit that provides a way to extend low-level or recessed shower drains — a nuisance for tile and floor contractors. Molter invented the Extend-O-Drain in his garage in the 1990s, frustrated when he couldn't find a solution to the problem in hardware stores. Extend-O-Drain surpassed $500,000 in sales in 2010, Molter told the Business Observer for a Dec. 3, 2010 story.
Mallory Molter saw her dad's passion for inventing, business, hobbies and anything else, up close for years. One of five of his children, the younger Molter especially recalls fishing and hunting trips with her father. They went everywhere from Tarpon Springs to South Carolina to the Bahamas.
Molter says her father had a great sense of humor and was the type of guy who would do anything he could to help people. “For everyone who knew Dan, it was always an experience to be around him,” says Molter. “He was a great guy.”