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Mike Smith, Ag 1 Source

Posted on by Pat Melgares
Mike Smith, Ag 1 Source
Mike Smith, Ag 1 Source

A businessman in Oregon is considering a new job. He is connected to this potential position by a recruiter based halfway across the continent. That recruiter is the founder of an executive placement company that serves clients across the nation… from rural Kansas.

Mike Smith is the founder and chairman of Ag 1 Source, a national agricultural recruiting company. Smith grew up on a farm near Long Island, Kansas. He commuted to Norton High School because of its outstanding agricultural education and FFA program. He says his ag teacher and FFA advisor, Bob Broeckelman, had a lifelong impact on him.

Smith went to Kansas State University where he met his wife and returned to the farm, but this was during the farm crisis of the 1980s. He took an opportunity to work for Collingwood Grain in southwest Kansas.

“It was a great decision,” Smith said. He enjoyed agribusiness and rose through the ranks of the company.

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Kansas Profile – Now That’s Rural: LeAnn Clark/Laurie Curtis, Ethiopia Reads

Posted on by Jason Hackett

By Ron Wilson, director of the Huck Boyd National Institute for Rural Development at Kansas State University.

“I cannot see, but I have a vision.” That statement from a blind educator in Ethiopia might introduce a visionary program through which rural Kansans are helping encourage literacy halfway around the globe.

Mobile Ethiopian library supported by Ethiopia Reads
Mobile Ethiopian library supported by Ethiopia Reads

LeAnn and Stan Clark and Laurie Curtis shared the story of this innovative nonprofit organization known as Ethiopia Reads. They told about Jane Kurtz, the co-founder of Ethiopia Reads, who had grown up in Ethiopia where her father was a missionary pilot.  Jane moved back to the United States, married a Presbyterian minister, and became a children’s book writer. Several of her books drew on her years growing up in Ethiopia.

An Ethiopian refugee in the U.S. came across her books and was touched. He contacted Jane and encouraged her to develop literacy in Ethiopia and send children’s books there. That was the beginning of Ethiopia Reads.

Jane Kurtz received a grant from North Dakota Presbyterian churches to gather books and send them to Ethiopia. She and her husband later moved to be near his parents at Moundridge, where they met LeAnn Clark. Continue reading “Kansas Profile – Now That’s Rural: LeAnn Clark/Laurie Curtis, Ethiopia Reads” →

Kansas Profile – Now That’s Rural: John Martens – NMotion UAS

Posted on by Mary Lou Peter

The fire is raging through the building as the firefighters hurry to the scene. They need to identify the location of the fire and determine the safest and most efficient tactics for dealing with it. If only they had a quick, practical way to get an aerial view of the building…that is the thought process which led a Kansas entrepreneur to create an innovative new business using unmanned aerial systems to enhance public safety.

John Martens is the founder of NMotion UAS, the company which is doing pioneering work with unmanned aerial systems and technologies. John grew up at Hesston and went to K-State. He became a firefighter in Manhattan and then moved back to get closer to family.

johnmartensdrone
John Martens

John still works as a firefighter. His wife is also from Hesston and teaches financial planning at K-State-Salina. On the side, John started working in digital media, including video production. In order to get aerial views, he began using unmanned aerial vehicles – sometimes referred to as drones – for filming video.

Then commercial uses of these drones were blocked by the FAA as the agency developed drone regulations. John was frustrated, but as he looked into the matter, he found that the use of drones for public safety purposes was still permitted through an authorization process. As a firefighter, he immediately recognized the benefit of using unmanned aerial systems to help at a fire scene or other emergency by using a piece of remote-controlled equipment for recon instead of a human.

Continue reading “Kansas Profile – Now That’s Rural: John Martens – NMotion UAS” →