Print edition: 
Kansas is home to one of the world’s largest personal-use global positioning system companies: Garmin, based in Olathe.
Kansas also is home to Garmin’s founders, Gary Burrell and Min Kao.
“So many times we are asked, ‘Why Kansas?’ ” said John Cassat, vice president for communications at Garmin. “It is simply because it is home. The two founders lived here. And if you are going to start a company, why would you leave home to start it? It may not be close to the waterfront for our marine products, but it is a few hours away from the aviation center of the world.”
That fact, along with the state’s leading role in agriculture and aviation was touted Sunday in a forum at Exploration Place to draw attention to the museum’s latest exhibit. The exhibit is designed to teach people about GPS technology through geocaching, an outdoor game in which people try to locate hidden containers using GPS. About 30 people attended.
GPS is changing centuries-old farming methods with high-tech computer analysis – measuring soils in the field to determine how much fertilizer and seed to distribute, said U.S. Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kansas, one of the speakers.
“You know why it is important? In the next few decades, we are going to have to feed 9 billion people,” Roberts said. “If we continue to do that from a humanitarian standpoint, feeding the malnourished and hungry, it will help contribute toward world stability. You show me a country that cannot sustain itself with a food supply and I will show you a country that is in complete chaos. ... If you are not stable and can’t feed your own citizenry, you have big problems. That’s where terrorism starts.”
“An uninterrupted GPS system is critical to our nation’s economy,” Roberts said.
GPS makes economic sense, said Mark Bergkamp, who farms 3,500 acres in Sedgwick and Harvey counties. It “saves fuel, fertilizer and seeds … Your cost savings can easily approach $30 an acre on an annual basis. You multiply that by a couple hundred million acres in the U.S. and that is substantial savings.”
GPS is changing other industries, such as aviation.
“Not that many years ago when you navigated from Chicago to Los Angeles, you did it by following highways, railroad tracks or by dead reckoning based on the direction you were heading, estimated winds — and made corrections as you went along,” said Chuck Reagan, a pilot, flight instructor and professor of both aviation and philosophy at Kansas State University in Manhattan. “That’s what Charles Lindbergh did.”
Garmin started in 1989 with two engineers who had an idea that GPS had widespread possibilities. “It is technology that measures speed and distance,” Cassat said “Within days of starting the company, we discovered it could have limitless opportunities.”
The business’s fastest-growing segment now is sport and fitness, Cassat said. The technology “helps track runners and coaches run better miles. It is helping marathoners set records. GPS devices are on the bicycles that compete in the Tour de France. We have GPS technology for dogs, for families who buy GPS devices to help care for their parents with Alzheimer’s or a child entering day care. It is a technology that is absolutely important to our military, aviation and marine industries. It is important to all of us.”
