Doug Pitt: Not easy to know but ‘the guy who will step in’

Doug Pitt, businessman and founder of Care to Learn, is not an easy man to get to know.

“He is just not a real outgoing guy,” says long-time friend Matt Miller. “His dad is that way. Doug can be seen as distant, disinterested, stand-offish. That is more of a personality thing. … And then you couple that with his life experiences.”

Those life experiences involve having Brad Pitt as an older brother. As a result, people give Doug screenplays for his brother to read. One man came to Doug’s business to ask why Doug and Brad had placed a microchip in his head. Others simply want to hover near the glow of reflected fame.

But there’s something about Pitt few people know, says Miller, a real estate developer who graduated with Doug Pitt from Kickapoo High School in 1985.

“Doug is kind of a bad ass. He is a tough guy,” Miller says. “He would not fight you. Well, he would if he needed to. But with all the charity work he has done — as polished as he has become — you might think you know him.

“He has a very strong sense of right and wrong,” Miller says. “That is one area where he is not bashful. If he ends up in a situation when there is a wrong being done — even if it’s a random situation where it’s being done to someone else — he is the guy who will step in.”

Douglas Mitchell Pitt, 48, stepped in to help his community back in 2007. It started when he was at a Springfield Chamber of Commerce meeting. He was astounded by stories he heard of children in poverty right in his hometown.

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