President, Pitts Veterinary Hospital – General Practitioner
His love of animals, including the snakes he often found and carried home in his pocket or deposited in his dresser drawer, much to the dismay of his Mother, directed him toward a career in veterinary medicine. He’s very science and medicine oriented, so the decision between human and veterinary medicine was a difficult one for him. Animals prevailed, and he graduated first in his class at veterinary school in 1969. He continues to love the challenge of medicine and surgery.
His family traveled a lot while he was a child. His Father was a football coach at the college level and a member of the Navy Reserves. Both jobs required frequent changes, so although he was born in Missouri and lived in several different Missouri towns, he also lived in California, South Dakota, Washington state, and Nebraska. He began his college studies at Southeast Missouri State in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, and achieved his Doctorate of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Missouri in Columbia.
He had worked at the National Institutes of Health as a co-step between his first and second years of veterinary school, and signed on with the Public Health Service for a four year term of service after graduation. He was in charge of a breeding colony of foxhounds; worked with physicians on surgery projects using his dogs; had administrative duties over his kennel, management and staff; and consulted with various branches of the NIH that were using animals in their studies, including species ranging from mice to primates. Although he enjoyed the work, the bureaucracy of government service was a huge deterrent to making a career in the Public Health Service, so he began making plans to build a client oriented practice of his own.
These plans came into fruition when he and his wife, Dr. Carol Pitts, opened the doors of their clinic in 1974.
He’s a member of the American Veterinary Medical Association and the American Animal Hospital Association. When not at work, you can usually find him on the golf course or on eBay looking for the perfect club. He plays both modern and hickory shafted clubs, and loves golf history.
