Ralph Linzmeier
Episode 322
31 MAR 2025
He was a competitive swimmer as a youth and played water polo in high school. He received a Presidential Appointment to the U.S. Air Force Academy, where he continued with both swimming and water polo. Believing in the value of non-profit service as an important duty, he has focused on his passion for serving, church, the underprivileged, and supporting education and youth. With two other couples, he and his wife conceived, co-founded and led the effort to create Saint Junipero Serra Catholic which has grown to become the largest Catholic grade school in America. He is a Knight of Malta and served on the National Board of Governors of Legatus, a Catholic organization for business executives who strive to study, live and spread the Catholic faith in their business, professional, and personal lives. His focus these days is on the Fruitful Futures Project, a 501(c)(3) devoted to inspiring fruitfulness with the intention of helping others to help to build the Kingdom.
Notable guest quotes:
“A very Catholic family. My parents were so faithful in the church, and we went to Mass weekly and confession very often weekly as a matter of fact. I was an altar boy. My dad saw that I was an altar boy.”
“I had something called Osgood-Schlatter’s which is maybe a malformation of a portion of your bone. So, contact sports, like basketball or football, was a little ill-advised according to the doctor. So, the swimming was a natural and it was something that I was drawn into and every member of my family, all the younger brothers, sisters, joined. My little baby sister became an Olympian.”
“I was a pretty good swimmer. And it turns out the Air Force kind of really wanted me there… they kept working and working, finally a presidential came through. President Nixon appointed me to the Air Force Academy.”
“It was athletics, it was sports, that was so formative. My coach in high school… was just a wonderful man. He wasn’t so much a man of God, but he was a powerful motivator, and he was a man of gratitude, really impactful.”
“Back in the day, faith was a very active component of military service. At the Academy, every cadet was required to go to church every Sunday.”
“My wife, along with two of her friends and many other of the moms, were really anxious about having a Catholic school in our area… And we found out that there were really 5,000 families in the area that had an interest… We kept working and working, working at it… And so, Bishop McFarland said, ‘Ralph, show me $150,000 and we’ll go ahead and give you an approval.’ So, we’ve since raised about $80 million to build this school.”
“As Legatus members, we’re charged to build and study our faith in the business community, and in our community, and in our family. And so, it’s become a very important part of our faith experience, because it leads us to all kinds of other things. It was Legatus that led me to the order of Malta, where we are, the charism, it’s the largest lay order in the Catholic Church, an order that’s over 900 years old, and the charism in the order of Malta is service to the poor and sick.”
“These associations, the order of Malta, are about service to the poor and sick in your part of the country. And then internationally as well, every year we go on a pilgrimage to Lourdes, traveling with sick people.”
“I believe that every soul is yearning to bear good fruit. Jesus told us to bear good fruit.”
“I walk maybe four to six miles a day. That’s where I spend my time in prayer.”
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