The Bob Wuerfel Story

Bob Wuerfel graduated from Hope College in 1988 with a major in business and a minor in geology. He was hired by a title agency as a manager trainee and found the title industry a perfect fit for both of his passions.

His 30-plus year career includes founding Lighthouse Title Group in 2001 in Holland, Mich. He is president of the company, which started with one office and has grown to over 35 locations throughout Michigan and eastern Wisconsin.

Bob had never heard of title until he began interviewing for positions as he neared graduation.

“I interviewed for a couple of different opportunities and one of them happened to be a title company,” he says. “They were looking to hire a management trainee. And I thought if I am going to college to get a business degree, with an emphasis on management, I should take a management trainee role.”

He accepted the position at the agency in Holland, where he learned the ins and outs of title. Over two years, he received on-the-job training in production, settlement, operations and marketing.

He fell in love with title, appreciating how it connected to geology through the ability to tie land to history.

“To this day, I am still an examiner at heart,” Bob says. “What drew me to it was that it was almost like genealogy for land. I loved solving the puzzle of a chain of title and figuring the warranty deeds on conveyances from this person to that person. For me, it was the puzzle-solving, finding the family tree of a property, and using my management degree and dealing with land, with geology. I really enjoyed that aspect of research.”

At age 25, he was given the opportunity to manage his own location for the company, a startup near Lansing, Mich. He was responsible for hiring his team and marketing the agency.

He then moved to western Michigan and managed a few locations for another title agency.

“I spent 10 years with that title agency, learning a lot, growing with the oversight of several offices,” Bob says.

After another 13 years working at other title companies, he decided to go out on his own and founded Lighthouse Title Group. The corporate headquarters relocated in 2019 to Holland, Mich., right back to where his career began. Back to the exact same building, in fact.

“My first interview was in what is now our closing room,” Bob says. “My second interview was with the owner of the company, which is the office I sit in now. I remember sitting in this room and he had a picture on the wall of all the different locations he had. I have literally come full circle from where I started to where I am.”

Lighthouse Title has grown a lot since its beginnings in 2001. It now has 135 team members and manages 15 title agencies. About half of those locations came through acquisitions.

“Being able to grow into new communities via M&A is both exciting and challenging,” Bob says. “Vetting the agencies is pivotal to a successful on-boarding. Over the years, our vetting process has become more intensive and we add to the next prospective agency checklist.”

Expansion has not come without some challenges. “I find that I look at issues along the way and ask what we can learn to make us better the next time a similar situation arises,” he says.

Lighthouse Title Group continues to explore expansion opportunities.

“We’re looking to grow our footprint, whether it’s through an acquisition, a joint venture or startup, but it has to work within our strategic plan,” Bob says. “I’m not looking to just add a dot on the map.”

He enjoys the variety of experiences that running a title agency provides.

“For me, every day can be different and challenging, and I like this diversity,” Bob says. “I can be involved with a merger, or dealing with an office metric or budget matter, handling calls and visits from other managers in various regions and still working hard to keep a local connection with the various offices.”

The restrictions put in place during the early days of the pandemic certainly tested all industries, and Bob is particularly proud of how his team rose to the challenge. He said he is fortunate to have a great leadership and administrative team.

“They are all aligned with our mission statement and goals, and I very much appreciate all of them,” Bob says. “A great example of our team was to see how they have pulled together and supported each other during the height of COVID-19 impact. I saw ingenuity on how we handled closings, with solutions that ranged from ‘drive-up’ with documents being signed in vehicles to remote online notarization (RON), to remotely supporting other offices when a need arose.”

It’s important for Lighthouse Title to keep up with both the changing technology in the industry and customer expectations, Bob says.

“To stay fresh and relevant, we need to ask if we’re willing to change and is our culture one that understands that the change that we’re looking to do is really for the betterment of our clients,” he says. “I don’t like to introduce change for the sake of change, but if our customers are asking us for opportunities to change, are we willing to change?”

RON and drive-up closings are a good example of that, as these rose in popularity during the pandemic.

“We had to embrace that fact. Are we going to offer flexible closing options or are we going to do it the way we’ve always done it? Wherever the consumer is looking to change, we are always looking to have those tools available,” he says.

In addition to beefing up its social media presence, the company recently worked with Bowe Digital to introduce an updated website that features virtual closing assistant Louie the Lightkeeper, developed by Alanna.ai.

“We realize everybody is not going to want every tool, but we need to be able to give people a larger bandwidth of options,” Bob says. “If a client is in a younger demographic, they might want to go with the virtual closing assistant and text over information. If a different demographic wants to place it online, they can place it online. If they want to call, they can still call. We’re not pushing one technology over another, but we also must be relevant. We don’t want to lose a potential customer because we don’t have a tool available. We’re giving people options.”

Bob’s son Alex works at Lighthouse Title Group as director of business operations. Alex graduated from Central Michigan University in 2020 with a degree in actuarial sciences.

Alex didn’t plan on working in title, but when his job opportunities were put on hold in the spring of 2020 due to the pandemic, Bob floated the idea past him. Alex shadowed current finance team members before accepting the opportunity.

“We were growing and looking to expand our finance department to include more analysis and forecasting of every location, so having someone with his background has been a great asset to all locations of the Lighthouse Title Group,” Bob says.

Investment and involvement in the local community are also important to Lighthouse.

“While our Lighthouse family of offices as grown, what I am very proud of is our local community involvement in every market we are located,” Bob says. “While the data and financial health is our roadmap, we believe that our network is a strength to lean on and yet, we know that the local markets and community presence is key.”

For example, since the start of the pandemic, Lighthouse Title donated over $250,000 and thousands of hours to non-profit organizations in its communities. And when a tornado hit Gaylord, Mich., about a mile and half from Lighthouse’s office, the Gaylord team wasted no time in heading out to help.

“Our local team was out within hours assisting and continue to volunteer, and our company donated $10,000 to the local United Way that is leading the recovery efforts,” he says.

Lighthouse Title Group celebrated its 20th anniversary last year.

“This is my passion. I’ve been doing this for 34 years now,” Bob says. “I’m still learning and reviewing areas to enhance our family of companies for our clients and their customers.”

Bob has been married to Shayne for 31 years and they have three children: Anna, Alex and Corinne (married to Matt Smyk).

In their free time, Bob and Shayne enjoy weekends at Chippewa Lake fishing, boating, skiing and relaxing around the campfire.