Note to Editors: Adapted from the Kansas Profile radio series, this column profiles a different Kansan, Kansas community or Kansas-based company every Wednesday, as a regular feature of the K-State Research and Extension News  lineup. A photo of Ron Wilson is available at  http://www.oznet.ksu.edu/news/sty/RonWilson.htm.

Released: February 7, 2007

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

Electrical engineering, chemical engineering, mechanical engineering, nuclear engineering, and more. There are several types of engineering professions. Today we’ll meet an engineer of a different sort: He is an entrepreneurial young man who could be described as an "organizational engineer." You probably won’t find that in the engineering curriculum, but it is a good term to describe his work in helping communities and organizations build a better future for themselves.

Leon Atwell is a young man from rural Kansas who studied engineering and then found that his career took a different turn. Here is the story of this engineer who is using his skills in special ways. First of all, what exactly is an engineer? According to my dictionary, it is "One who operates an engine." Well, thanks a lot. 

But another definition says, "One who manages an enterprise in a skillful way."  And in verb form, it says, "To plan, manage and accomplish by skillful acts." Those definitions are very appropriate to describe this rural "engineer."

Leon grew up at the northwest Kansas town of Norton, population 2,943 people. That’s rural - but stay tuned.

Leon went on to K-State where he studied engineering. He then immersed himself in the technical things that engineers do so well....designing, building things and managing projects. He also found time to marry a Kansas farm girl along the way. After college he went into the corporate world in Texas, but after several years in the engineering profession he came to a life-changing conclusion. Leon says, "The  secret to business success isn’t usually found on the technical side, it’s through the people side."

So Leon took the well-honed technical skills that had been developed through his engineering work and sought to build on them to apply them to the people side of businesses and organizations. At Sam Houston State, he earned a master’s degree with an emphasis on psychology, education, and organizational development.

Near Houston, Texas he helped grow and improve a number of organizations doing leadership and organizational development work. He then worked internally for a very large global engineering company, helping with large organizational change projects, and then in 2000, went out on his own.

Leon says, "After 9-11, the nation had a shift in priorities as did our family." For the Atwells, those priorities involved their roots back in Kansas. Leon says, "Our families and hearts were here in rural Kansas. Each year we would come home to Kansas for vacation and wheat harvest."  He and his family truly care for rural Kansas and rural communities. In 2002, they made the move to north central Kansas. Leon continues to help organizations and his wife is a personal trainer with a wellness center.

But for years, Leon traveled to where the work was anyway. While in Houston he had commuted weekly to L.A. for many months to work on a project. 

After coming back to Kansas, he facilitated a three-day session for executives of an international technical services company in New Jersey to align their global business priorities.

While continuing to help rural organizations in the Midwest grow and improve, he also works with the Center for Rural Entrepreneurship as the Kansas lead for the HomeTown Competitiveness initiative. HomeTown Competitiveness is an approach to rural community building that provides for long-term rural community sustainability.  This program originated in Nebraska, where it has had excellent results. Leon is involved with assisting communities with HomeTown Competitiveness in Kansas. For more information, go to www.htcnebraska.org

This rural Kansas advocate makes his office near the north central town of Beloit, population 3,925 people and actually lives in Glen Elder, population 428. Now, that’s rural.

How exciting it is to find this young "organizational engineer" benefiting rural Kansas communities and organizations.

There are electrical engineers, chemical engineers, mechanical engineers, and several other types of engineers, but now we’ve met an "organizational engineer." He has merged his technical skills with people skills to help communities and organizations succeed. We salute Leon Atwell for making a difference with this unique mix of technical expertise and caring for rural communities. I believe he has the skills to engineer his way through anything.

-30-

K-State Research and Extension is a short name for the Kansas State University Agricultural Experiment Station and Cooperative Extension Service, a program designed to generate and distribute useful knowledge for the well-being of Kansans. Supported by county, state, federal and private funds, the program has county Extension offices, experiment fields, area Extension offices and research centers statewide. Its headquarters is on the K-State campus in Manhattan.

For more information:
The Huck Boyd Institute is at 785-532-7690 or rwilson@ksu.edu

K-State Research and Extension