Dan Welch
n0ddw@hotmail.com
Dan was born in Washington, D.C., lived for a time in New Castle Delaware and moved with his family to Wyandotte County at the age of four. He attended Lindbergh Elementary, Washington High School, Kansas City Kansas Community College, and Kansas University where he obtained electrical and civil engineering degrees.
Dan held a variety of professional positions over the course of his career. He was initially hired by the Naval Electronics Systems Test and Evaluation Facility in Maryland as a civilian. There he tested receivers, transmitters, amplifiers, antennas and other equipment. He later supervised testing of the Navy’s state-of-the-art UHF transceiver as a contract employee. Next, he worked on Boeing’s project to put a cruise missile on B52 bombers, and later he worked for the Kansas Corporation Commission studying marginal cost pricing, economic electric dispatch, electric capacity planning and power flow. He also conducted the State’s first expansion planning for windmills at a time when Kansas was a national leader in exploring these concepts. His final professional position was with King Radio where he helped the company qualify a rapid control box which was subsequently mounted in F16 cockpits.
Dan has also worked several jobs on a part-time basis: 30 years driving a school bus, 28 years at Worlds of Fun and 19 years at the Internal Revenue Service where he continues to work.
Outside of work, Dan especially enjoys hiking. In 1973 he hiked the entire length of the Appalachian Trail and still tries to keep up with the latest Trail news. Now days, he says long hikes are daunting, but he enjoys participating in the activities of the Possum Trot Orienteering Club and more casual walks through local parks.
Dan has been involved in community activities all his life from his early years in Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts to serving as Treasurer for Friends of the (Wyandotte County) Lake. He is especially interested in the history of Wyandotte County Parks and has a collection of facts and stories about them. He says that he has loved parks all his life. His maternal grandparents lived just a few miles from the Great Smokey Mountains National Park which he first visited at age 3, and where he discovered that not all parks have swing sets. Since then, he has studied parks as a pastime. He says he wants parks to be respected for the stories they tell, the amenities they make available and the life-changing experiences they provide. He feels that his service on the Parks Foundation Board allows him to work with others to continuously improve parks in Wyandotte County.