Air Force, IBM, and Businessman

After Lost Valley: Ken graduated from high school in 1971 and attended the University of Missouri before enlisting in the Air Force. Ken had three years of high school Air Force ROTC and was the Commander in his senior year. Because of his prior ROTC experience, he was given his first stripe before starting Basic Training. Ken was trained as an airborne electronic navigation specialist with a secret clearance. His job allowed Ken to travel the world in a military airlift squadron. After his Air Force tour ended, he returned to St. Louis to work for IBM as a computer engineer. 

Businessman: Ken has an unstoppable entrepreneurial spirit. While still employed at IBM, he turned his love of flying into an aerial advertising company called “High Signs”, which used a powered hang glider. Gordon Gundaker, a prominent realtor in St. Louis, was Ken’s best customer. Gordon hired Ken to fly over all Mizzou football games, regardless of their location, with the words "Gundaker Realty" in black tape on the massive wings. Ken’s unusual-looking ultralight aircraft would captivate the crowds by flying low and slow. He would turn the craft into the wind and expertly trim the controls to hold it in place in midair. Fifty to seventy-five thousand spectators would all watch Ken’s advertising UFO sit motionless in the blue sky and would cheer and wave as Ken waved his Tiger flags with both hands. (Ken and his wife, Darlene, now fly ultralight trikes and gyrocopters).

Growing Up: In 1958, Ken’s family moved to St. Charles, Missouri, located 23 miles from downtown St. Louis on the western bank of the Missouri River. As Ken grew up, his entrepreneurial experience continued. He sold items door-to-door, such as Mason Shoes, kitchen pots and pans sets, greeting cards, and anything else advertised in the back of the Boy Scout magazine called “Boys Life”. A paper route followed, along with numerous retail and restaurant jobs. In the winter, he would shovel snow from driveways, and in the summer, he would cut people’s grass, pick strawberries at local farms, and scoop up lost golf balls at area courses with ponds using goggles and a butterfly net. 

Other businesses Ken owned were Paintball Wargames and Bushwackers Paintball, which were very popular with corporations that used the game as a team-building exercise. They operated out of the now-closed St. Charles Speedway and in Wentzville, Missouri, where they were constantly booked because the nearest paintball field was over 70 miles away in Illinois. 

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