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Growing
Companies
Wichita has been
an entrepreneurial city from its beginning. Walter Beech. Lloyd
Stearman. Clyde Cessna. Bill Lear. Dan and Frank Carney. Harry
Shepler. Tom Devlin. Frank Barton. Sheldon Coleman and Fred Koch
are a few of the entrepreneurs who founded Wichita companies
that are known throughout the world. The companies they started
turned into Beech Aircraft (now Raytheon Aircraft Company), The
Boeing Company, Cessna Aircraft Company, Learjet, Pizza Hut,
Shepler’s, Rent-A-Center, The Coleman Company and Koch
Industries.
All the major aircraft companies and the hundreds of
smaller entrepreneurial businesses that deliver goods and
services to the manufacturing giants — they’re still here. So is
The Coleman Company. And Koch Industries has grown to become the
second largest privately held corporation in America,
a company that if it were to be publicly traded would jump
immediately into the Fortune 25.
As always, the great strength of the Wichita economy
remains in the hands of smaller businesses. Their endeavors have
taken Wichita’s economy onto the leading edge of a global
marketplace.
In 1948, Harry Shepler opened a saddle and harness business
on North Main. Today, Shepler’s is “The World’s Largest Western
Store and Catalog.”
Pioneer Balloon Company produces a million latex balloons a
day. It also manufactures foil balloons. Those are Pioneer
balloons in Times Square every New Year’s Eve.
Great Plains Ventures and its subsidiary companies
manufacture farm and mowing equipment,
trailers, gauges, and a variety of other equipment.
The next time your family goes to an amusement park, you
are likely to find products manufactured by Chance Rides and
Chance Coach Inc. Chance Rides is one of the world’s largest
producers of merry-go-rounds, carousels and amusement park
rides. And you probably rode on a tram or trolley made by Chance
Coach on your ride in from the parking lot.
INTRUST Bank is the largest locally owned bank in Wichita
and the largest bank headquartered in Kansas.
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