2025 Economic Impact Awards Lifetime Achievement in Business: Doug Pitt

Perhaps it should be called the Half-Lifetime Achievement in Business award, as Doug Pitt says he’s nowhere close to hanging up his hat. The businessman and philanthropist has two successful and growing companies, he’s in the midst of the largest development deal of his career and the nonprofit he founded is hitting new heights of service at a record clip. At 58, Pitt says he’s the best version of himself he’s ever been – physically, spiritually and mentally.

“I’m just getting started. We’re calling this a Lifetime award; I expect a second lifetime,” Pitt says. “Why would I stop?”

Pitt has been described as a renaissance man, with the drive to excel anywhere he sets his sights. Over his years in business, that’s been in the fields of technology and real estate and development – he co-owns managed service provider Pitt Technology Group LLC and real estate investment firm Pitt Development Group LLC.

But he’s also taken his business acumen into the nonprofit world, developing what would become Care to Learn within days of hearing about the poverty impacting kids in his hometown. That wasn’t something he knew about, growing up with a Norman Rockwell picture of family, he says. CEO Krystal Simon says the nonprofit has just surpassed 4 million health, hunger and hygiene needs met for kids in the state.

And his heart for service has taken him to the continent of Africa over 30 times, supporting WorldServe International with its mission of providing clean drinking water. Executive Director John Bongiorno says Pitt has helped provide clean water to over 7 million people.

Business impact
Pitt got his start in business working with computers and technology – an industry he knew nothing about and a product he didn’t know how to use.

“This was 1991,” Pitt says, setting the scene for the start of his small computer shop, ServiceWorld Computer Center. “Honestly, true story, I didn’t know how to turn a computer on. I just had been talking to my dad about some business ideas and things I wanted to get into, and of course, we knew it was the future.”

The company started with two employees when Pitt was 24 years old, fresh off graduation at now Missouri State University with a degree in business communications and a minor in music.

“We had a service idea, hired some smart people and put in a lot of hours,” Pitt says. “It was tough, really stressful, but it was fun. I didn’t know any better. I was young and it worked out.”

He ended up selling a majority interest in the company to Miami Nations Enterprises in 2007 while continuing to be an owner and principal operational partner. In 2012, Pitt co-founded TSI Integrated Services, in partnership with TSI Global, a St. Louis-based company, and those companies merged. For a time, he wasn’t involved in the ownership of the companies.

In 2017, however, he repurchased the business, now with a co-owner, Kevin Waterland. The company was reorganized as Pitt Technology Group and has grown to 50 employees and $11 million in annual revenue.

Pitt says it was Waterland who brought him back into the business. He had hired him at 18 years old and Pitt recalls he wasn’t great at his job those first few years – “He’s lucky he didn’t get fired,” he recalls with a laugh. But what he discovered in the next few years was rare, he says – Waterland was an entrepreneurial tech person in one package.

“Doug is probably the ideal business partner because he knows where to be hands off and he knows where to be hands-on,” Waterland says.” He’s the kind of guy I can call at any minute, no matter where he is in the world, and he’ll pick up the phone.”

Pitt says he lets Waterland and minority owner Andy Dierks run the show, and he’s there for guidance.

He says the technology industry taught him how to embrace change.

“I’m selling things that weren’t even around two years ago. … So, I’m good with change, I embrace it. That’s a strength,” Pitt says. “That can be a little disruptive to some of my business partners, that can be disruptive to my family, but that’s exactly how my brain works. I can’t turn it off and I’m thinking all the time. When I get new information, that’s where we’re going.”

While he got his start in technology, it seems his real love in business lies in his other ventures.

“I wake up and go to sleep thinking about my real estate,” Pitt says with a smile.

In 2014, Pitt founded Pitt Development Group with partner Brian Hayes. After a decade of developments in apartments, strip centers and land development, the group was formed to focus on medical office space and land development.

“I love doing business deals,” Pitt says. “I’ve got my largest real estate deal I’ve ever done in my life that we’re working on right now. I hope to have that closed here in September.”

He declined to share the location in the state or the health system he’s working with, but says the deal is valued at $35 million.

“In our relationship, in our partnership, loyalty has been by far his biggest strength as a leader, no question,” says Hayes. “He has kind of a quiet strength about him that he doesn’t have to flaunt, he doesn’t flaunt.”

Hayes recalls years ago, Pitt had the opportunity to work with a different partner in their real estate business. “I won’t forget this ever because he had a chance to make a better deal for himself and go with the financial partner and leave me to the side, which he would’ve been within his rights to do, but he didn’t do it,” Hayes says. “That’s just the kind of person he is.”

‘A big heart’
Pitt agrees his legacy will be closely tied to Care to Learn. But the start of the organization really happened by chance. Pitt was the incoming board chair of the Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce and at a meeting he heard a presentation from Morey Mechlin about the issue of poverty in Springfield.

“She just started telling stories: Fifth grade boy wearing his mom’s jeans and three siblings sharing a toothbrush. … I was embarrassed. This is my town. I love this place. I’m really involved,” Pitt says. “We actually had dirt floors in Springfield, Missouri.”

Days later he was meeting with Norm Ritter, then superintendent of Springfield Public Schools, and learned there was simply no funding available to meet the emergent needs of kids at SPS. Pitt says he could not shake this feeling he needed to do something. He was at a stoplight at Fort Avenue and Sunshine Street, and he recalled thinking that there was likely a kid in need right around the corner. “Care to Learn was born in my head right then,” he says.

Mechlin, who was the first executive director of the nonprofit, says his quick work to solve a problem is just the kind of person Pitt is.

“That’s a leader,” she says. “That’s somebody saying, ‘What can I do about an issue that is new to me?’”

The nonprofit has since grown to 46 chapters across the state and has met over 4 million emergent needs for kids.

“That’s what happens when things catch on fire. And there’s a lot of great people behind the scenes making it work,” Pitt says, noting he never doubted Care to Learn would make an impact. “I knew it would work because I wouldn’t let it fail. I can raise money, and I don’t like it anymore than a lot of people, but I’m good at it.

“If I’m going to do something, I’m going to do it right. I want to win,” he says. “We’re really good at what we do because we compete. There are only so many dollars you can raise. There’s only so much to go around. And I do not apologize for the effort.”

Pitt had sold his technology company and was taking a breath after “running really hard for a while” when the call came in 2006 that would lead to his involvement with WorldServe International, right before the start of Care to Learn.

His pastor connected him with WorldServe’s leader, Bongiorno, and a week later flights were being booked for his first trip to Africa.

“I walk in a village and I see what happens with dirty water. I walk into a village and I see what happens with clean water. As a human being, it’s just hard to walk away,” Pitt says. “I go back to the business side of me: This is easy. I can raise money and go from here to here.

“I’m staring at literally life and death. In these remote regions of Tanzania back then, two out of five kids would not reach the age of five. And that has changed. It’s getting better, but to have a role in saving lives, I applaud John and WorldServe and the fact that our board are businesspeople.”

Like a business, the nonprofit has diversified. WorldServe has built drip irrigation systems, sanitation buildings, churches and schools, and their wells are solar paneled with multiple queuing stations that can serve thousands of people.

“Doug has a big heart for people who are hurting and people who are in need,” says Bongiorno. “We’ve together been able to provide clean water to over 7 million people on the continent of Africa, and that’s growing by three quarters of a million every year.”

Pitt was named the first Goodwill Ambassador in 2010 by the country’s former leadership, a title he still holds. He says that role has been centered on building relationships in the developing country, and it has enhanced the opportunities for impact.

He’s also been able to use his love of photography to support the mission, taking photos across Africa and using the proceeds to support WorldServe.

In his philanthropic endeavors, Pitt says doing what’s best for business is what’s best for the mission, and that means striving for excellence.

“The acumen is the exact same in Pitt Development Group, Pitt Technology, Care to Learn, WorldServe – we are a business first and the byproduct is building buildings, doing tech, helping children, clean water,” he says. “But none of those happen unless we’re best in class.”

But Pitt is quick to note he’s not the mastermind behind the projects, naming Hayes, Waterland, Simon and Bongiorno. He says learning to lean on others is a lesson he’s learned with time.

“They’re all just pros and locked into their space. It’s easy for me to help try to do a whole bunch, but you’ve got to put up guardrails and just stay within your lane and be really good at it,” he says. “That’s the 58-year-old guy talking. The 30-year-old guy was terrible at it. I was all over the place. The 40-year-old guy, still chasing a lot of different deals. You get a little smarter as you get older.”

Pitt is a past honoree of the Starkey Hearing Foundation along with President Bill Clinton with their Humanitarian Leadership Award for his work in Africa and his work domestically.

He has been a Rotary Volunteer of the Year and a Missourian Award Recipient and was inducted into the 2019 Missouri Public Affairs Hall of Fame. 

Behind the name
Though Pitt has invested heavily in businesses and philanthropic work, he says nothing is more important than his family. He’ll celebrate 35 years of marriage this year to Lisa, and the two have three adult kids: Landon (working in private equity), Sydney (architecture), and Reagan (event planning).

“I hate that they’re gone, but I love the fact that they just felt like they could go and had the wings to go fly and figure out life on their own – and have,” he says, noting his kids live in Los Angeles, Chicago and Austin and he visits them regularly.

The importance of family comes from his own upbringing. He says he had an ideal childhood, and he loved growing up in the ’70s.

“My dad was pretty no nonsense and pretty driven. And guess what? I am too. My mom was an artist. And I love the fact that my brother and sister and all three of us, I feel, are artistic,” he says. “There’s no secret, that’s part of my success, the way I package and work in my brain.”

He says Springfield has been an ideal place to grow up, raise a family and start a business.

He built a tight-knit group of friends while in high school. Matt Miller, owner of Miller Commerce and one his closest friends, says they were brought together after the tragedy of losing a classmate.

“The reality of it is that we’ve got to share some of the most exciting experiences in each other’s lives. … And some of the hardest things also,” Miller says. “And when I’ve had to make it through an impossible situation, Doug was there for me the whole way. That’s not just the kind of friend he is; that’s the kind of man Doug is.”

Pitt says he’s learning just how important those social connections are as he studies longevity. He can be a loner at times, he says, but his friendships are deeply meaningful to him.

That loner attitude helps makes sense of his hobbies – mountain biking (he’s biked down Mount Kilimanjaro), playing the piano (he plays at home a couple times a week, though he says he’s no good) and photography (Elton John has some of Pitt’s work he’s done for charity in his home).

It’s clear Pitt’s not even close to writing his last chapter.

“I want to be doing deals when I’m 100,” he says. “Why would I quit now? What would I do? I’m already doing what I want to do, which is a blessing at this space of your life where you can make choices. … I’m the best version of me I’ve ever been.”

But whatever comes next, it better come fast. He illustrates that well while talking about deals.

“I love seeing the package get put together, then I love seeing the building going up and then I’m bored,” he says. “I’m ready for the next one.”