It was there that he met Dr. Elbert K. Fretwell of Teachers College, Columbia University, who was a summer instructor at Warrensburg, and an early leader in the B.S.A.
Based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, he spent 2+1⁄2 years traveling around the mid-west setting up Scout troops in the towns and cities he visited.
In 1938, one of these supporters, Oklahoma oilman Waite Phillips, donated part of his huge Philmont Ranch near Cimarron, New Mexico.
Three years later, in December 1941, just days after the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor, Phillips donated the rest of his ranch to Region Nine.
[citation needed] During Fitch's twenty-five years as Region Nine Scout Executive, his office was in Dallas, Texas.