2005 - DON TELGE

Don grew up on a rice farm in Houston and graduated from Cypress Fairbanks High School in 1951.  After high school, Don attended the University of Houston.  Even before graduating high school, Don stood on a rice levee flagging an airplane spraying 2,4-D to control senna bean.  Don remembers that the results were “miraculous” especially since it saved him from removing them by hand. 

After he left the farming business, Don became a ranch manager in the Chappell Hill, TX area where in 1961, he helped set up a pasture weed spray program and brush trials with specialists from Texas A&M.  Two of the numbered compounds Don experimented with are now known as “Tordon” and “Banvel.”  

In 1966, Don moved to San Angelo to help develop a foam spraying system that was eventually sold to Velsicol Chemical control.  Don joined Velsicol in 1971 and helped introduce “Banvel 720” and “Banvel 320” to the industrial and railroad market.  

From 1973 to 1985, Don was a part-owner of Habco, Inc., a railroad vegetation control contractor.  

In 1982, Don purchased a landscape nursery which he operated until 1995.  During 1985, he was coaxed to return to the weed control industry by Asplundh. Railroad Division.  With Asplundh, Don applied one of the first commercial applications of “Oust” along the Arkansas Missouri Pacific Yard in Little Rock, Arkansas.  Don was also one of the initial users of the product we know now as “Round Up” and helped determine the appropriate field mixture rates for that product.  During his railroad weed control career, Don developed a spray system for use with on-rail spray trucks using a dual set of nozzles that applied two different rates of herbicides per acre from a single mix by changing the speed of the spray truck.  

Don moved back to Texas in 1997 and “retired” in 1999.  Retirement has been busy, through, as he is a partner in Telge Northcutt Training, LLC, (TNT Training) a firm which provides pesticide CEU and examination preparation training.  Don is also a Master Gardner, and manages the Master Gardner Greenhouse and heads up the azalea and drip irrigation programs at the Zilker Botanical gardens in Austin.  

Don and his wife Cynthia live in Spicewood.  Don has two sons and a daughter as well as two stepsons.  Don and Cindy are avid jet skiers and spend as much time on Lake Travis and Lake Amistad as they can. Don enjoys tending to his beautiful grounds at his home in Spicewood and is always supervised by his two dogs, Homer and Jethro.