Jim Zockoll, godfather of franchising and Dyno-Rod founder whose ‘snake rodders’ cleared British drains – obituary
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Jim Zockoll, who has died aged 93, was the American-born godfather of franchising in the UK as the founder of Dyno-Rod, the drain-clearing service which found its own special place in popular culture.
Zockoll’s first career was as a Pan Am flight engineer, with a sideline in drain work in his home town on Long Island. Arriving in London for a flight layover in late 1962, he was told by the manager of the Kensington Gardens Hotel where his crew was staying that Christmas disaster loomed because a blocked drain necessitated the lifting of the ballroom floor at a potential cost of more than £40,000.
Zockoll offered to clear the pipes at a fraction of the cost and disruption, but to charge nothing if he did not succeed. A few days later, using electromechanical “snake rodder” equipment flown over from the US, the job was done in a matter of minutes. Sensing an opportunity, Zockoll moved his family to London, transferred his day job to Pan Am’s West Berlin base, and – with the help of his English father-in-law and the hotel plumber – set up the business that became Dyno-Rod.
Franchising offered the fastest and most cost-effective way to grow and Dyno-Rod was not the first franchise launch in the UK – the pioneers were in fast food – but its American format was still deeply unfamiliar. On one occasion when Zockoll asked whether an advertising salesperson on the phone knew the meaning of “franchise”, the answer was: “Certainly, it means the right to vote.”
Nevertheless the first two franchisees were signed up in 1965 and there were eventually 89 of them, meeting the needs of contract customers and vast numbers of distressed emergency callers.
Dyno-Rod established itself as the first name for domestic blockages, its call-out service acquiring connotations both macho and macabre. One television ad presented the “Lone Drainer” sprinting into action – to the William Tell overture as used by the “Lone Ranger” western television series – under the slogan “Not all masked men are bandits”. And it was a Dyno-Rod operative, Michael Cattran, who in 1983 found parts of one of the serial killer Dennis Nilsen’s victims under a drain cover outside Nilsen’s Muswell Hill flat.
But such connections did not deter the prime minister David Cameron from declaring in a 2014 speech launching his “Big Society” initiative of civic responsibility: “If there are things that are stopping you from doing more, think of me as a giant Dyno-Rod.”
James Francis Zockoll was born on February 14 1930, the youngest of six children of steelworker Fred Zockoll and his wife Margaret, née O’Toole. He was brought up in North Braddock on the outskirts of Pittsburgh, completing his education at Scott High School before serving with US forces in Korea as an aircraft crew chief.
On his return, Zockoll enrolled in the Pittsburgh Institute of Aeronautics and in 1955 he joined Pan American World Airways as a flight engineer on DC6 and DC7 aircraft, based at Idlewild (now JFK) airport in New York.
When the advent of the Boeing 707 in the late 1950s reduced the need for on-board engineers, Zockoll invested in rental properties and started a small drain-cleaning business as a precaution against redundancy.
But he remained with the airline until 1981, when he retired to focus on developing his franchising portfolio. As well as Dyno Plumbing and Dyno Secure (offering locksmith services), he introduced the Pit-Stop car exhaust service, Autrac mobile engine tuning, Piggy-Back trailers, Texon car paint shops and ZIF parcel delivery – plus Old San Francisco ice cream parlours in West Germany.
Dyno-Rod was a founding member of the British Franchise Association in 1977. The Zockoll family continued to own 85 per cent of the business, the remainder being held by former Pan Am colleagues. Having abruptly abandoned a project to float on the stock exchange, Jim Zockoll sold the Dyno group in 2004 to Centrica – parent of British Gas which was a major Dyno-Rod client – for £58 million.
Zockoll was by then 74 but entrepreneurship was in his blood and he continued to develop new franchising and brand ideas until the end of his life. One of his later passions was for “vanity” business phone numbers using letters rather than numbers, a common formula in the US – “0800-Plumber”, for example – but one which he found frustratingly slow to catch on in the UK.
As a philanthropist, Zockoll funded vouchers to provide residents of North Braddock with turkeys for Thanksgiving, helped individuals and families in need, and was a benefactor of his high school reunions and the Pan Am Historical Society. He enjoyed singing Frank Sinatra songs at his keyboard, and fishing in Florida.
He became a British citizen in 2017. He married, in 1960, Ann Ware, an English girl he met when she was working in Barkers of Kensington department store. She survives him with their two sons.
Jim Zockoll, born February 14 1930, died January 25 2024
CORRECTION: An earlier version of our obituary carried images that were not of Jim Zockoll. We apologise to the Zockoll family for the error and are happy to correct the record
