Bob Leilich

Meet Bob Leilich, 2016 candidate running for the The Woodlands Township Board of Directors Position #1.

bobleilich Hello Woodlands gave the opportunity to all candidates running for The Woodlands Township Board of Directors to interview with our team. We want to thank the candidates for their time and allowing Hello Woodlands to share their answers with YOU and the community.

Share your background. What originally brought you to The Woodlands?

“My son who is a captain of United Airlines was instrumental in bringing us here because we have three beautiful grandchildren. We were living in a suburb of Washing DC. It was getting time to make a change to the beach or the mountains and we decided The Woodlands is the place we wanted to be and we have absolutely no regrets. We moved here in 2006, so we have been here just short of 10 years.”

How do you contribute, give back and/or make a difference in our community?

“I have lived in 13 different states and many cities over my lifetime and I have never lived in a community where there’s so much opportunity to get involved and give back.
Currently I’m a President of MUD 1 and was responsible for merging, consolidating MUD 2 into MUD 40, setting a precedent in The Woodlands. I’ve been on the MUD’s for many years.
I’m a former trustee The Woodlands Joint Powers Agency. I’m currently director and treasurer Grogan’s Mill Association and put in a budgeting and financial system. I’m a member of the Residential Design Review Committee (RDRC) for Grogan’s Point and on the RDRC for the Grogan’s Mill Village Association.
I’m heavily involved in church, the missions program, and occasionally teach Sunday School.
So that not only demonstrates what I enjoy doing because of my very strong technical, economics, and financial background, but that I contribute.”

Why do you enjoy living in The Woodlands?

“With family and church first, I enjoy the many amenities like the pavilion, Conroe, or theatre, the different concerts, activities, park, the things that we do here in Grogan’s Mill, and the many parties that we have. The list just goes on and on.
The deep friendships have made – not only on our street where we live, but throughout the community of The Woodlands. It may be a community of 113,000, but the way I feel you could easily drop a few 0’s off of that number. I feel that where ever you go in The Woodlands, I know I will meet people and cannot go out to dinner without running into someone you know.
I love to play golf. I learned how to play golf when I came down here and that’s become a passion for me.
I’m really proud of our community, I brag about it – although not too strongly because I don’t want all that many more people to come down here. (laughs) I want to enjoy what we have.”

How has The Woodlands helped and affected you?

“It’s got me more involved in my community. Before I retired, I was heavily involved in my company which I founded and was president of. I sold that company and started another one. When I retired and came to The Woodlands, it was just a whole change of venue.
I just like living life, being able to contribute, and having to check the instruction manual of the alarm every time I need to get up early in the morning. (laughs) I like that.
Just being a part of the community, I feel like I’ve lived here my whole life.”

What fuels your fire to run for The Woodlands Township Board of Directors?

“There are three things that I really see missing on the Township board that I have.
It’s like a concert pianist when he retires, he doesn’t quit playing the piano. I have been a professional transportation consultant nearly my entire life. I have a very strong educational background in mechanical engineering, with graduate degrees in economics, transportation economics and finance. I see this dimension missing on the Township board. I see they have abolished the Transportation Ad Hoc Committee which puts the work that they were doing in the transportation and traffic field on hold or virtual stop.
I’m also a member of the Township Drainage Task Force representing the MUD and committee on that task force. Jeff Long who is a civil engineer is retiring from the Township Board and is going to leave a huge leadership vacuum. There’s no candidate that’s running, there’s no existing board director that has the interest and knowledge that I do to serve on the Drainage Task Force for some of the flooding issues that we experience in The Woodlands. This is particularly dependent on the fact that we have to work with Montgomery County, surrounding counties, Harris County, and The Woodlands because we are all in the boat – literally, pun intended – with regards to flooding concerns.
I’ve seen the wonderful work Jeff has done and been involved with him. It is something that I can take over without missing a heartbeat.
I also want to reinstitute the Ad Hoc Transportation Committee because of my very strong capabilities in that area and introduce The Woodlands to new technologies that control traffic lights that have come to existence in forty cities, seven of which are in The Woodlands. I’ve attempted to get people to listen to this, but they don’t understand. I think of being on the board, I will have a bigger hammer than instead someone sitting at home writing letters to the editor or having lunch with people of the different precincts or organizations in the surrounding area.
I’ve also been pretty disturbed by the push to incorporation and I am firmly against rushing into it. There’s no need to set money aside immediately. It’s like putting money in college when you don’t even know if your spouse is pregnant, or can get pregnant, or if they even want to go to college. Let’s do our homework, let’s find out what needs to be done. We have plenty of time. There’s been too much of a rush.
There’s a lot of misinformation going around particularly about this 70% tax increase and I’m ashamed to have my pictures on those folders that were distributed – something that I knew nothing about in advance. The tax increase is not 70%. Your total tax increase if we were to incorporate could be and proudly will be well under 10% total tax increase.
Misinformation, passion I have for transportation, and being a MUD 1 President and having walked all of our drainage ditches. I’ve gotten very familiar with flushing issues and will all the things we need to deal with hydrology and so forth. The last thing is there’s 19,000 covenant violations last year in The Woodlands. There are 39,000 homes in The Woodlands. This is excessive and we need to be better at educating people to not cut down trees without getting permission from the RDRC. And work to go after those who refuse to correct violations for which they have not gotten an exception to. That sums up why I am fired up to run.”

Tell us about your business (or organization, group, event, product, etc).

Mechnical Engineering education at Purdue University and masters in Industrial Management at Purdue Unversity where I got pretty good grounding for economics and finance.
Military Experience in U.S. Navy as Destroyer Chief Engineer
Yale University – Transportation
Worked at Santa Fe Railway and Line Management for a number of years
Worked with 2 large international consulting firms, one being an Accounting firm for 10 years
Started own business in Transportation where I did international consulting for the transportation field, very heavily oriented in the mass transit and commuter rail. Sold consulting firm after 20 years.
Started software development for tranportation simulation modeling and sold that software to people around the world. Sold the business after 5 years.
Retired and moved to The Woodlands in 2006
I still enjoy consulting in the field of where I spent a virtual lifetime.

“In running for a position on the board, you have the tea party slate on one hand and then the anti-tea party slate on the other hand. There are three positions, three candidates running for position #1. I’m proud to say that I’m kind of the frog in the middle. I used to tell my kids when growing up “frog in the middle” means you can’t get out. Well I’m trying to get out, I think I offer a really solid choice between tea party position – much of which I subscribe to, not all of it – and then the other side is totally focused on derailing Gordy Bunch and keeping him from being reelected. My position is that I want to be elected because of the reasons I have sighted. I’m running on my strengths – not against somebody or for a particular slate which is backed by the tea party and the Texas Patriots.”

What are 5 things that you want voters to know about you (personal, points, views, experience, etc)?

Strong technical background in engineering
Strong background in economics and finance
Management experience with large corporations and consulting experience
Small businessman having starting up 2 businesses, managing payrolls, mortgages, pension issues, health insurance issues, and so forth
I have a wealth of understanding and experience, good health and a sound mind. As a Christian, ethics to me comes before anything.

“I think I have a lot to offer and I’m not yet ready to sit down in the armchair and watch TV for the rest of the day.”

What makes you unique to other candidates and your competitors?

Strong technical background. There will be no other engineer on the board except for Laura Fillault who has a degree in Industrial Engineering. My understanding is that she has not been as deeply involved in engineering as I have been in my life.
No one has my background or interest in Transportation.
No one has my interest or background in Flooding and Drainage.
No one seems to be concerned about covenant violations like I do.

“That’s sums up what differentiates me from other candidates.
And where I do have similarities with other candidates is against rushing into incorporation, against The Woodlands Parkway extension – I voted for it, and not in favor of the Gosling Road extension which has also been proposed. I think my service on the board I would attempt to put up road blocks to keep that from going through until we have an understanding that fully supports the residents of The Woodlands and not just those speeding through our community from one side to another.”

Where do you see yourself in the near future?

“I kind of take things one at a time. I would certainly like to see my golf score fall below a 100 and working on that. But I have no long term prospects to serve forever on the board or on any of the other things I do. Life is an evolving journey and I’m always looking for new experiences and I think this will give me an opportunity to demonstrate what I can do and contribute as much as I can. After I’ve done that, it’s time for new blood to come in and take over hopefully following the path that hopefully I and others on the board are setting and would like to set.”

Updated 11/5/16: Bob’s son works for United Airlines and Bob walked all the drainage ditches, not blocked.

To learn more about Bob Leilich, visit BobLeilichCampaign.com

Don’t forget to vote in Early Voting until November 4 or on Election Day, November 8!

Please note that Hello Woodlands is an unbiased, nonpartisan news source that does not support only one party or candidate. We believe in providing the community with educational information, credible facts, thoroughly researched topics and articles, and to be a voice for ALL members in our community.