Dr. Lance Renner is the new director of the testing center at the Duane G. Meyer Library. He started on Monday, April 6, 2026 after resigning from his position as assistant manager of operations for Lululemon, where he worked for approximately four years. Over the course of his life, he has done many different things, but his position here at Mo State blends a couple of his interests.

“I think it bridges two different facets of my life,” he said. “One, the academics, but then two, this opportunity with external testing to drive some revenue.”

Born on September 25, 1969, he was raised on a farm just south of Springfield, Missouri. His family had about ten acres of land and they raised cattle for beef. Each year in the spring, they would buy ten or twelve cows and if they wanted other meat, they would trade beef for pork or chicken or another type of protein with other farmers. They also had a massive garden and grew their own vegetables including green beans, corn, potatoes, okra, zucchini, and others. They didn’t go to the grocery store except for bread or milk. 

His mom and dad worked in the public school system as a kindergarten teacher and high school guidance counselor respectively, which helped to finance their family. For farmhands, they had Lance and two younger daughters. The cattle work entailed feeding the cows, watering them, and making sure the pasture stayed clean.

“I would take a five gallon paint bucket, fill it full of feed, and they became very tame, you know, so you could walk to the feed trough and just bang the bucket,” Lance said. “They’ll hear that and they’ll run.” 

Lance and his father would alternate taking care of the cows in the morning and evening. 

A creek ran through the back of their property and the cows could have fresh water if they wanted. They were free-ranging cows who had a lean-to shelter if they wanted to be inside. 

“There was a lot to do,” he said. “It really wasn’t a big deal with the cattle, but the garden stuff…that was a lot more work. But we knew how to do everything. We knew how to plant. We knew how to go down, pull weeds, put a lit a little bit of oil in each cornstalk and that makes it to where bugs don’t get in your corn. As the silk starts to come out, so it means it’s growing, just putting like three drops in there…bugs will never get in there.”

They used this oil method for almost all of their plants. Because there were zero pesticides, it wouldn’t hurt them to eat. It also wouldn’t harm any bugs who were hungry and curious. 

The children took part in harvesting the garden as well. Primarily they canned what they picked so they could eat it all year, but they also froze some of it. 

His parents sold the land about twenty years ago, when they were in their sixties, and moved to a smaller home. They continue to manage a small garden with tomatoes, cucumbers, green beans, onions, and asparagus. One of Lance’s sisters also has a hobby garden. But as an adult, Lance has neither garden nor cows. 

“It was a lot of work growing up,” Lance said. “That really wasn’t my passion. I loved my childhood. I loved everything about it. But I didn’t want to do that. It just wasn’t for me.”

He did, however, go into an adjacent career field for a while. 

Lance graduated from Kickapoo High School and then went to Drury University, where he got a Bachelor of Arts in business. Immediately, he bought a restaurant and ran it for almost five years. It was called Lance’s Melters and was located near the intersection of Cherokee and Glenstone.

“I never took a cooking class. Never once,” he said. “There was an old chef at OTC named Jim Hitz. He’s passed, but he taught me a lot of cooking things.” 

Lance’s vision for the restaurant was for everything to be fresh. The restaurant served (exclusively hot) sandwiches, salads, baked potatoes, and soups. 

“Everything was from scratch,” he said. “Even the bread.” 

Unfortunately, as both owner and worker, he struggled with work-life balance. Managing about 14 employees, he worked 12-hour days, six days a week. So he sold the restaurant and these days, another eatery is operating in the building. 

“I’m still am a scratch cook. I love to cook,” he said. “Love, love, love to cook.” 

Cooking is how he expresses the artistic side of him. He doesn’t like to use recipes, and prefers to cook from taste, so cooking is his chance to create. 

“If I make 10 dishes, four of them may just be horrible,” he said. “But then the ones that I’ve perfected, I just keep doing it.”

Also frequently, he will have a meal out at a restaurant and then come home and tweak the basic idea to see if he can make it better. 

After he sold the restaurant, he was a substitute teacher for a short time in Springfield Public Schools and then he got a job as assistant to the president at Ozarks Technical Community College in 1997. He worked at OTC for 25 years.

While working, he got a masters in business administration from Drury and then ran the Human Resources department for about three or four years before becoming Dean of General Education and Business. At that time, he finished his PhD in higher education administration from St. Louis University, a Catholic institution founded by the Society of Jesus, the largest Catholic religious male order, often called the Jesuit Order or simply the Jesuits. 

Although raised Southern Baptist, Lance now considers himself to be an active Catholic even though he is technically not confirmed yet. He went through the Catholic catechesis program this past year called the Order of Christian Initiation of Adults (OCIA) at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Catholic Church, but missed several sessions due to important familial obligations. Although his teacher offered to confirm him anyway, he wants to fully finish the class before he stands before the congregation and confesses his faith, all of which he plans to do next year at Easter. 

Spirituality has been a journey for him.

“I kind of put God in a drawer for a while in my life,” he explained. “That’s what I did. I chose other things besides the spiritual life. And that was a conscious choice—not a good one—but it is what it is, you know? And just because I did that doesn’t mean that God stopped loving me. And when I opened the drawer…He loved me.” 

In his years away from the Lord, Lance said that life was generally satisfying. 

“But there was always just this void, if that makes sense,” he said. “And I think that void was God. That’s what I believe.” 

When Francis became Pope, Lance began to read his writings and his homilies. He was impressed by Francis’ passion for the poor and the less fortunate. 

“It kind of opened my heart and my spirit and my soul,” Lance said. “I think we are all here to help other humans. And there are other humans that don’t have what I’ve been able to have. I feel like I should be able to help them. And I feel like the Catholic faith is one that really does that.” 

In his OCIA class, he made great friends, including an 80-year old woman who he goes to Mass with a couple times a week. 

Why does he go so often, particularly to Daily Mass?

“Grounding, I think,” he said. “Sometimes I feel like there’s a lot of things in the world that are very…crazy? But inside Mass, it’s not that. Mass is very, you know, you come in, I know what these next 30 minutes are. I feel a real, strong peace for 30 minutes of my day. And that’s very important to me.”

Some quick facts about him:

1. Lance values his family a great deal, including his rescue cat, Queenie.

“She’s definitely a one-person cat,” he said. “So we were made for each other.” 

2. He and his niece, Olivia, share a birthday and often do joint parties. 

3. He tries to stay active and loves to watch sports, particularly hockey, baseball, football, and basketball. 

4. He lives on the southside in an old-fashioned, 2,100 square-foot one-level home he designed about twenty years ago. It is a smart home with gadgets he has tinkered with to make everything just right. 

“If I’m driving home, I can say, ‘Hey Google, I’ll be home in five minutes, have the house ready,'” he explained. “All the lights will be on. It’ll change the temperature to the temperature that you like. It could start to play music if you want it to. I want to do the blinds next.” 

5. Favorite food: pizza (all types)

6. Favorite drink: coffee. 

     6 a. coffee of choice: Tantara Farms’ Brazilian roast with a little bit of cream. 

7. Favorite dessert: key lime pie, preferably found in the southern United States, especially the species found in the Little Havana neighborhood of Miami 

8. Even though he retired from OTC, he went back to work because he didn’t want to sit at home. 

“I get a lot of pleasure from work,” he said. “When I come here, I make the most of every day. That’s the way I live my life. To me, to be here isn’t necessarily different to me than if I’m walking on the streets of New York City or if I was on a beach. I don’t think of life that way.”

Although he enjoys his weekends, he doesn’t not enjoy working. For Lance, every day is a good day, no matter what he’s doing. That’s his philosophy.