How long is your commute to work? Ten minutes? Twenty? Half an hour? I remember living in a city back east where it took more than an hour in stop-and-go traffic to get to work.
Today we’ll meet a young man whose commute lasts however long it takes for him to get to his computer in his house. He is part of the current wave of remote workers, and he is choosing to live in rural Kansas.
Matthew James is this young remote worker. He is a native of Concordia who went on to study computer science at K-State. “I was always interested in technology,” Matthew said.
In the summer after his freshman year, someone at Matthew’s church told him about an opportunity to work remotely. The county economic development director at the time was the wife of Matt’s high school baseball coach, so Matt was comfortable talking to her.
“She told me about a program in northwest Kansas called Rural & Remote,” Matthew said. She put Matthew in contact with Kade Wilcox and he got Matthew into the program.
Rural & Remote is one of the projects initiated by the Northwest Kansas Economic Innovation Center Inc., supported by the Dane G. Hansen Foundation in the northwest part of the state. The program is customized to fit each individual based on their experience and unique needs. It involves application, training, work experience and job placement support.
