Employee Spotlight - Steve Todt

Employee Spotlight - Steve Todt

​February's spotlight is on Steve Todt. Steve is a State Purchasing Officer for Southern Illinois University and has been in that position for 7 years. Prior to that, he worked for the Illinois State Treasurer. Steve has worked in State government for a total of 20 years.

I really like music.  I have never played, but enjoy listening to all kinds of music.  My mother liked music and always had things like Elvis, Sinatra and big band playing in our house.  This carried over for me to listening to all kinds of music today.  I really like seeing live music and have been to over 100 live shows.  Everything from seeing the greats in stadiums to a punk rock show at a club in a strip mall.  One of my brushes with fame was meeting The Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers in a bar.  He couldn't have been nicer.  My wife gets a bit annoyed with the classic rock, but that and the 90's grunge era are my go to. 

1. Anything involving tools -  I can fix just about anything in our house or with our cars. My father was the greatest handyman of all time.  He passed some of that ability on to me and my brothers.  I  hate paying someone to do something I can do myself!
2. Gardening - I come from an agricultural family.  I am the 1st generation of my family not to farm.  I make up for it though with my vegetable garden.  It expands a little each year.  I expect to occupy part of my days working the land if I ever make it to retirement!

I am not sure it is my greatest achievement, but one I am very proud of is building our house.  I bought a book explaining how to build a house.  I read it from cover to cover three times.  From there I convinced my wife and a banker  we could build a house without a contractor.  We ended up doing about 1/3 of the work ourselves including concrete, electrical, finish carpentry, painting, flooring and much more.  It has been 14 years and the house hasn't fallen down yet!

Watching a Red Sox game at Fenway Park in Boston.  My Grandfather played for the Sox for a short time in the 1930's.  He made me into a lifelong Sox fan despite growing up in Cardinal country.  It would make for an amazing day to get there for a game.

Beyond the Call by Lee Trimble - This is a book about POWs at the end of WWII on the Eastern front.  I like U.S. history and read a lot about the Revolutionary war period and WWII.  I would probably be teaching high school history if I had a do over.