Lantz Rowland 1956–2017
Lantz was born January 10, 1956 and died December 31, 2017. He was an iconic leader in the SHARE community. He lived at Tent City 3 for many years and had several roles in SHARE including member of the elected Board. He was very politically astute, which influenced the choice of location for his Leaf.
Lantz’s Leaf is on the 5th Avenue side of Seattle City Hall. If you have memories or photos of Lantz, please post a comment.
Featured Leaf January 2022
2 Comments
Tracy Arant
I knew Lantz for several years. When I was no longer at TC3, I’d see him all over downtown and he always had a good word. He was a wonderful person, and he will definitely be missed by myself and the homeless community. I hope he’s resting in peace. He deserves to be. He was an excellent spokes person for the homeless folks.
Al Bergstein
I worked alongside Lantz when he was a skillful programmer at Physio Control. I believe he started in the IT department in about 1992 or so. He was an outstanding AS400 minicomputer programmer. One of the finest we had. He sat next to me and we shared many a lunch story. Lantz specialized in connecting Apple Macintosh computers to the AS/400 systems. He was one of the few people in America with the skill at that time outside of IBM itself. He had his trademark hair down to his waist and beard. Once we took a trip back to IBM in Minnesota to discuss future changes we needed from them to better connect our computers. We walked in, Lantz in his blue jeans and wild eyes, the button-down IBM types were somewhat startled but soon understood that only a few people in their company had Lantz’s knowledge of their own products.
Around 1994 Lantz started to fall apart, mentally. He exhibited what I would call paranoid schizophrenia. He confided in me that “the government” was out to get him for some back taxes or something. He eventually quit work and the next time I heard of him he was homeless in Seattle. Friends from Physio chipped in at one point to buy him a new computer. I visited him once at a church in Greenlake where he was staying.
Lantz had been an expert at tuning church organs. I miss his insights and his amazing brain and funny stories. RIP Lantz.