Print edition: 
Two Wichitans will join entrepreneurs from Kansas, Kansas City and Nebraska in Pipeline’s first regional class of innovators.
Mark Allen and Brandon Shuey will be among nearly a dozen entrepreneurs who will spend the next year attending three-day education sessions each quarter on topics related to starting and building a technology or bioscience-based company.
Allen is president and founder of Enertech, a technology firm providing compliance services to natural gas and hazardous liquid pipeline companies.
Shuey is president and CEO of FlipHound.com, which is involved in digital outdoor advertising.
Allen, Shuey and the rest of the 2012 Innovators will be formally announced at Pipeline’s Innovator of the Year event tonight in Overland Park.
The event will also include the naming of the top Innovator from Pipeline’s 2011 class, which includes Wichitans Brian Williamson of JCB Labs and Gerry Rues of Electronic Sensors. A third innovator in the 2011 class, Kyle Johnson of Lawrence-based Audio Anywhere, grew up in Wichita.
Trish Brasted, CEO of Wichita Technology Corp., said it’s important for Wichita to be represented annually in the program, especially now that it has expanded regionally thanks to a matching grant from the Kauffman Foundation.
“We’ve got to be connected to our region as a whole,” she said. “Wichita (entrepreneurs) need access to the financial markets that this region has to offer.”
