The Question and Answer feature helps readers learn more about prominent people in the business community. This issue’s Q&A profiles Bob Litz, owner and manager of Litz Construction and Development LLC and a City Council member who began serving in 2006 and was elected to a full four-year term this spring.
 Bob Litz started Litz Construction and Development LLC this year. (Inertia/for SFBJ)
Name: Bob Litz
Title: Owner and manager of Litz Construction and Development LLC, City Council member representing the northwest district
Background: Navy veteran, served in Vietnam from 1972 to 1975; graduated from Augustana College in 1986 with majors in history, government and political science; attended California Lutheran University; returned to Sioux Falls in 1990 and started a framing company; worked as a construction manager at Sioux Empire Housing Partnership from 2003 to 2007; started his construction and development business this year
Hometown: Sioux Falls
Age: 55
Family: Wife, Sharon, of 22 years; son Robbie of Los Angeles; daughter Amber, attending Augustana; daughter Amelia at Lincoln High School; daughter Anna, starting at Lincoln; and son Alan, starting at Edison Middle School
Q: Tell me about your interests and hobbies.
A: “I’m a big reader. I like to read a lot of things. I like to take my family out camping. I love football, and I like to coach South Dakota Junior Football. I help out with the Storm. I’m interested in studying politics, reading philosophy, religious studies.”
Q: How did you become interested in your field?
A: “I’m kind of an accidental carpenter actually. When I was going to college for a public administration degree, as everyone going to college knows, you need money from time to time. I did day labor construction things for friends. When I came back to South Dakota in 1990, I started a framing company and had that for 14 years.”
Q: What’s keeping you busy now?
A: “I’m working on the Sands Freedom Center for the Glory House, a cabin up at Lake Poinsett. I have a business plan completed and made an offer on land. I’m trying to put an affordable housing development together. It will be an in-fill development on old industrial property on the east side. It would help clean up that neighborhood. It’s a whole neighborhood. There’s 28 acres there. It would be a challenge. There’s bedrock, railroad tracks, old industrial.”
Q: What do you enjoy most about your work?
A: “I guess at the end of the day you can look back and see something that has been accomplished. There’s not just paperwork across your desk. There’s something that has been physically accomplished. You can look back and see something put together. I also like that when you run into a problem, you’re trying to put a solution together. My philosophy on the job is that it takes money, time and quality, and you have to balance those to put out a good project. If you put too much time on one, the others suffer. Some people will build as cheap as they possibly can. That’s not always the best route. You have to put quality in what you build so it lasts for a while.”
Q: How did you become interested in politics?
A: “I had a high school teacher, Mr. John Lincoln from Lake Norden. John was my government teacher. He was the guy who got me interested in it. Another guy I met at Augustana, Roger Andal, had been involved in campaigns. He got me interested in it again. ... I’ve always believed in public service. I believe you just always give something back to the community.”
Q: As a City Council member, what business-related agenda do you carry?
A: “I’m very progressive in the development of Sioux Falls. With our growth, we have to manage it and do it properly. We have a problem with equality. We have developers with property on all four corners of town, and we have to spread out our resources equitably. We’re putting more money into roads. We need to raise the sales tax to the full 2 percent. I still think that should happen. We need to get a chunk of arterial roads going. The developers have the responsibility of filling in the neighborhood roads. The city has a vested interest in getting arterials up. We’re falling behind. We have put a lot of money into overlays and chip and seal this year, but we do have a compressed building season. I think by the end of next year people will quit complaining about the condition of the roads. But with roads closed and detours, that agitates people, too.”
Q: How do you find time to balance your job and your family?
A: My family, they’re first. I’m home with them every night. It all just seems to work out. Leonardo da Vinci had 24 hours a day and look at what he accomplished. If I could do a tenth of that. ... I try to do the next right thing, whatever that is. That’s my philosophy in life. Do that, and you’ll find success.”
Q: Do you have a charity or organization that’s especially close to your heart?
A: “The Glory House. I’m on the board of directors. I’m building this building here at a reduced rate. ... I’m also active in the home builders organization. It has Sioux Falls’ best interests at heart.”
Q: What’s your favorite getaway?
A: “Probably Palisades out at Garretson. It’s just a wonderful, special, little magical place. I go out there and relax, and my cell phone doesn’t work!”
Q: If you could take a one-year sabbatical, what would you do?
A: “I would probably study philosophy, honestly. The older I get, the more you kind of wonder, ‘What is it all about?’ I’ve got ideas, but I want to hear what the great philosophers and theologians have to say. As a lay person, I can read it and get stuck. A lot of us are searching for meaning in life. It’s something we all pursue to one degree or another. I consider it growth, not a struggle. It’s something humans are designed to go through.”
Q: What’s your favorite childhood memory?
A: “I was an old North End kid, so just hanging out by Terrace Park pool, knowing where all the apple trees were on the way home. Terrace Park and the pool had a fascination for me as a kid.”
Q: What kind of music is in your car or what do you listen to on the radio?
A: “I’ve got some classical, a lot of bluesy type stuff, bluesy rock. I love JazzFest. I’ve got a five CD set I’m listening to now of CS Lewis, ‘Mere Christianity.’ I picked up a CD of Bob Dylan hits done by others. I’ve got a CD of Mute Math that I picked up after hearing it at Zandbroz Variety. I don’t know what to think about it. I listen to KXRB every Saturday morning like my parents did for the classic country.”
Q: If you could have dinner with two or three people, alive or dead, who would you choose and why?
A: “George Kennan was always an interesting figure to me. He was the guy who designed the containment strategy for the Cold War after World War II. His ideas were controversial at the time, but they were very effective. Everybody would like to talk to Jesus, wouldn’t they? I don’t know what to think about Christian religion. When I read the red letter stuff in the Bible, the stuff that’s attributed to Jesus, that’s the fascinating part to me. His words of wisdom are more that what a human mind could come up with.”
Q: What do you think are the best and worst things about living in Sioux Falls?
A: “The only real drawbacks are January and February. The best thing is obvious: the people in this town, their outlook on life, their indomitable spirit. We’re optimists. We’ve got our share of negative people, but I don’t focus on them as much as people who think Sioux Falls will continue to be a great city.”
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