Larry Holtzman seems like your normal, blue collar worker rather like any other guy of a certain age you’ll meet in the grocery store or maybe at the local bar in any small town in North Dakota. He was born in South Dakota but he and his family moved to Saint Michael, ND in mid 1950’s and it was there that Larry grew up. He attended elementary school from the second through the eight grades at Saint Michael with many people of the surrounding area that became lifelong friends. His freshman and sophomore high school years were spent at Assumption Abbey in Richardton, North Dakota. As it turned out, the reason for attending the Abbey “prep” school, to discern a possible future as a monk, was not meant to be and he transferred to Saint Mary’s High School in Devils Lake in his junior year. Larry graduated with the Saint Mary’s Class of 1967.
Larry’s family had connections to the Catholic missions in Marty and Blue Cloud Abbey near Milbank, South Dakota where the rest of the family moved in 1971. In his early 20’s at the time, Larry moved south with the family but only stayed for a month or so. He came back to Saint Michael in the summer of 71 where he lived until 1974. That year he moved to Devils Lake where he’s lived ever since.
He graduated from Lake Region State College (known as Lake Region Junior College at the time) in 1969. For reasons too numerous to mention, Larry did not have a clear idea of what career path he wanted to follow or even a clue as to what the possibilities might be. Following his time at Lake Region, he spent several years moving from job to job, working for time in construction, roofing and cement work, as a substitute bus driver a janitor at the school and maintenance work at the mission in Saint Michael.
In the fall of 1973, Larry was working for Joe Kraft as a block tender. At the time, Joe had a contract to do the masonry work in the new building at Fort Totten that today is the Sioux Manufacturing Corporation. On December 5 of that year, Larry was hired by the new company to work with the construction crews that were assembling the camouflage production equipment and installing the utilities in the facility.
“I was the 12th person they hired,” Larry recalled. That began a journey that leads to today, December 5, 2023, and a celebration of Larry’s 50th anniversary working at Sioux Manufacturing. He talks about those first days working there. “It was winter time and they were still in the process of completing construction on the buildings. The roof was not yet complete and there were no lights and no heat in the building at the time. “It was my job to keep track of the number of workers and the number of hours they worked.”
To hear him tell it, through the years he’s done many different jobs at Sioux Manufacturing and although he’s didn’t feel qualified to do most of them at the outset, he managed to figure them out, one by one and to become a successful, valued employee for the manufacturing company. His first job once the factory opened up for production, was as Receiving Inspector. After a few years in QA (Quality Assurance) he took on a job in configuration management which involved document control. The duties in that position were later expanded to include writing technical specifications, management and cost proposals, and policies and procedures for many of the disciplines related to Government contracting. After doing that type of work for ten years or so, he was assigned to manage the bid and proposal process. His current position, that of contracts manager, involves participation in most of the functions he was previously responsible for, and it draws on all of the knowledge, learning, skills and experience gained during the first 25 years of his tenure at SMC. He’s still a successful and valued employee after 50 years of change in focus, ownership, mission and his own position within Sioux Manufacturing.
Remember that I stated earlier that Larry Holtzman seems like your normal blue collar worker rather like any other guy you’d meet in North Dakota? Well, through the years he’s proved to be much more than that with now 50 years of learning, growing and doing whatever he was challenged to do at Sioux Manufacturing. This reporter would call that quite extraordinary! He’s a self-made man who is an intellectually nimble and adaptive employee who has become an expert at many different jobs and positions held through the past 50 years. And he’s not done, yet, stating that he’s not planning to quit any time soon, but plans to continue working and learning a while longer, I’m sure they’re glad about that! In fact, Lori Brown, CEO of Sioux Manufacturing wanted to include this quote, “It is rare to find someone as dedicated and loyal as Larry. He has been a valuable employee on our team for fifty years and I cannot thank you enough, Larry! Congratulations on your 50th work anniversary.”
In conclusion, Larry says his number one claim to fame, however, is that he holds the world’s record for making the most ever round-trips between Devils Lake and Fort Totten in the years he’s worked at SMC, I doubt many could challenge that claim. Congratulations on that AND your 50 years at SMC!
