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Kristine Larson Davis, space engineer

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

“Shoot for the stars.” That can be inspiring advice. Today we’ll meet a young woman from rural Kansas who followed that advice – not just as a dream, but as a career. Thanks to the K-Stater magazine, the K-State Alumni Association, and writer Ashley Pauls for this story.

Kristine Larson Davis
Kristine Larson Davis

Kristine Larson Davis is a spacesuit engineer at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. She grew up at Galva in McPherson County. As a kid, she looked up at the stars and dreamed about exploring the universe.

Her parents would often take her to the Cosmosphere space museum in Hutchinson.  That museum helped make the wonders of the universe feel just a little bit closer. In middle school, she had the opportunity to attend space camp and heard that one of the best ways to work at NASA was to become an engineer. Continue reading “Kristine Larson Davis, space engineer”

Kansas Profile – Now That’s Rural: Brian Hansen – Dustrol

From a lonely highway in Montana to a busy interstate near Bristol Motor Speedway in Tennessee, there are highways being repaired by a business which is the largest rotomilling company in the United States – and that company is headquartered in rural Kansas.

Dustrol, Inc., based in Towanda, Kansas recycles asphalt and provides other highway maintenance services across numerous states, from Tennessee to Montana.
Dustrol, Inc., based in Towanda, Kansas recycles asphalt and provides other highway maintenance services across numerous states, from Tennessee to Montana.

Brian Hansen is president of Dustrol Inc., this innovative asphalt maintenance business. Brian explained that the company was founded by Ted Dankert more than 40 years ago.

Ted Dankert served in the Army. After retiring from the military, he went to work for his father-in-law who had an asphalt paving business in El Dorado, Kansas. In 1973, he went out on his own and founded his own company to sell emulsions for sealing asphalt and controlling dust.  Because it worked so well in controlling dust on roads, he named the business Dustrol.

Ted Dankert expanded the business over time. In 1975, the company began using rented equipment to recycle asphalt in order to complement its pavement maintenence operations.

Continue reading “Kansas Profile – Now That’s Rural: Brian Hansen – Dustrol”