What exactly does Ty Masterson do at Koch-funded office? Rival calls it a ‘no-show job’
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Ty Masterson directs WSU workspace, officially branded 'GoCreate, a Koch Collaborative'.
- Masterson earned $163,000 last year as GoCreate director, per state records.
- Masterson’s primary rival Philip Sarnecki questioned his qualifications and workload.
Kansas Republican governor hopeful Ty Masterson has two offices.
One is on the third floor of the Kansas State Capitol, behind the ornate copper- and marble-accented chamber where he presides as Senate president.
The other is on the second floor of a nondescript building on the campus of Wichita State University. At the front desk, guests are greeted by a wall-hanging of a Minion from “Despicable Me” mounted on an aluminum sheet metal and bearing the message, “Welcome to GoCreate.”
Before it opened in 2017, Masterson was named director of the 18,000-square-foot workspace — officially branded “GoCreate, a Koch Collaborative” — where students and community members can design, 3D print, laser cut, weld, saw and stitch their creations into being.
Last year, Masterson made $163,000 as GoCreate director — nearly twice the $85,000 salary he earned as a top lawmaker in Topeka, state records show. Over the last decade, Masterson, who lives just outside of Wichita in Andover, has been paid more than $1.1 million by the WSU Foundation.
The details of his employment arrangement with the university, including the source of his privately-funded salary, are opaque.
One leading government ethics expert told The Star that GoCreate’s financial backing from the Koch family, highly influential megadonors with a $157 billion net worth and libertarian political agenda, means the burden is on Masterson to demonstrate to voters that his leadership in Topeka hasn’t been unduly influenced.
WSU did not respond to repeated requests for comment and had not provided a copy of Masterson’s employment contract in response to a public records request as of Wednesday.
The Koch Family Foundation also did not respond to requests for comment.
Masterson’s campaign defended his tenure at GoCreate as “some of the work he’s proudest of in his life,” and emphasized that he has consistently gone on leave without university pay or benefits during legislative sessions, which usually stretch from January to April.
Masterson’s GoCreate director role
Masterson went back on WSU payroll in April, as he traversed the state promoting his Trump-endorsed bid for governor.
“Ty returned to his role after session this year as usual, and he continues to work in person nearly every week and remotely when he’s not on campus,” campaign spokesperson Garrett Henson said in a statement.
“Several Kansas legislators work for state universities, because Kansas has a part-time citizen legislature by design, so the people who write the laws live under them and hold real jobs,” Henson said.
The issue of Masterson’s employment surfaced last week when one of his Republican primary rivals, entrepreneur Philip Sarnecki, shared a social media post claiming that Masterson rarely shows up on campus and questioning how he landed the job without a college degree.
In a statement, Sarnecki called the GoCreate director position a “no-show job” that “smells like career politician corruption.”
Masterson’s campaign dismissed Sarnecki as an elitist “Illinois millionaire” — referencing the state where he grew up and attended college — for questioning his qualifications.
“GoCreate wanted a leader with a non-traditional path, because that’s exactly who it serves,” Henson said. “Ty built a career and a life without a degree, and it’s the reason he connects with the students GoCreate was built for. It’s not a gap on a resume. It’s why he’s the right person for the job.”
Henson said GoCreate has had more than 2,000 members since 2017. Memberships are free for all WSU and WSU Tech students, according to GoCreate’s website. Seniors and veterans can gain access to the workspace for $99 a month, while memberships cost $125 a month for everyone else. Koch philanthropy provides membership assistance for some members, the website says.
In February, the Kansas Department of Commerce bestowed a Merit Award on GoCreate during its annual business awards, recognizing the public-private partnership for its training and educational programs.
In a brief interview after a campaign stop in Wichita in late June, Masterson said that as director, he’s responsible for sourcing equipment and providing guidance to members, as well as “making sure we have the investors in place.”
“It is highly fortunate that since it’s in the administrative side of things that I don’t have to be on site,” Masterson said, adding, “I do get on site a couple days a week. Some weeks, I do two to three (days of in-person work) and some weeks I won’t.”
Masterson’s most recent statement of substantial interest form filed with the Kansas Secretary of State’s office names WSU as his employer.
His only other listed source of income was his 100% ownership stake in Springboard LLC, which is described on the form as a consulting and property management business.
A visit to GoCreate
On a recent Friday afternoon in June, the GoCreate workroom was buzzing with activity as a team from Envision Inc. tested sensor vests designed to help people with visual impairments navigate their surroundings.
Masterson wasn’t in the office.
The engineering student at the front desk couldn’t say whether the GoCreate director works on site often. When asked about Masterson’s visits, he said he could not put a name to a face.
GoCreate Assistant Director Kimberly McCollum then emerged from her own office and put an end to the impromptu tour, introducing herself as “the director here.”
McCollum said GoCreate employees couldn’t answer questions “because we’re all working for the state.”
She referred inquiries to the WSU general counsel’s office, which, along with the university’s strategic communications division, did not respond to questions for this story.
The Star requested a copy of Masterson’s employment contract on June 29. The general counsel’s office said in an email response that it would provide a cost estimate for record retrieval no later than July 17.
Government ethics perspective
Davina Hurt, director of government ethics at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University in California, said Kansas voters deserve answers about Masterson’s two state paychecks and his relationship with the Kochs.
“My question is whether a reasonable Kansas voter would remain confident that their decisions in Topeka are being made independently or wonder whether this decade-long relationship with a single donor network had some pull on them,” Hurt said.
“Taking unpaid leave during a session is a real step, right? It deserves credit,” Hurt said. But it doesn’t answer questions about Masterson’s independence from political influence, she said.
Masterson’s gubernatorial campaign has the backing of the Koch-funded advocacy group Americans for Prosperity-Kansas, which used its endorsement announcement to praise the Senate president as a “proven policy champion.”
Masterson holds a leadership role with another Koch-funded organization — the American Legislative Exchange Council, which is a nonprofit group dedicated to sharing model legislation between conservative state legislatures. Masterson served as ALEC’s national chair in 2024 and remains on its board of directors.
“A decade of drawing a six-figure salary with a Koch-branded university program while also chairing a Koch-funded advocacy group nationally creates a pattern voters deserve to weigh as he asks them for the state’s highest office,” Hurt said. “It’s purely a public trust question.”
Masterson’s campaign spokesperson said “philanthropy doesn’t cut Ty a check.”
“Ty’s salary is not paid by any one group or donor,” Henson said.
He added that GoCreate “earns real income of its own, including a recent large-scale prototyping and heavy-welding project that brought in tens of thousands of dollars.”
The campaign did not respond to a follow-up question about whether Koch philanthropy has had any bearing on his policymaking decisions.
This story was originally published July 8, 2026 at 5:00 AM with the headline "What exactly does Ty Masterson do at Koch-funded office? Rival calls it a ‘no-show job’."
