Business Connections for Winter 2019

WINTER 2019 7 // Business Connections Blake Thorson grew up in Horton—enjoying a childhood spent playing at the local golf course and his grandparents’ farm just north of town—and graduated from Horton High School in 2005. His mother was a teacher at Horton Elementary, and his father was a car salesman in Hiawatha. Thorson’s current position of Account Manager at Harvest Video utilizes the education and sales talents he no doubt inherited from his parents. “My primary job responsibilities are fostering new business with prospective clients and maintaining relationships with existing ones. Harvest Video has an amazing production team, and I enjoy working with them to give our clients videos that help with market- ing and educate viewers about their genuine story,” Thorson said. Thorson moved away from Horton to major in print journalism at Kansas State University in Manhattan. He noted, “After graduation, I worked a few different places until I was offered a job as the Inven- tory Specialist at Staples in Manhattan in 2012. I worked my way up to General Manager, then left in May 2018 to join Harvest Video.” Why did Thorson decide to return to his hometown? He replied, “The biggest reason I returned was my optimism about the position and about Harvest Video. I was familiar with our CEO, Jason Smith, from my time in Horton, and I knew he had a sound mind for business and treated his employees like family. I remember telling my parents (after speaking with Jason and Michael Twombly, our COO) that I believed Harvest Video would succeed because of our leadership and the quality of our product. On a personal level, my fiancée was getting exasperated with my retail hours at Staples, which included many late nights and weekends. We have more time together with me at Harvest Video.” In this magazine, we periodically highlight people in our community whose career path brought them back to their roots. For this issue, we recognize Blake Thorson, Account Manager of Harvest Video—a subsidiary of Rainbow Communications located in Atchison. Returning to Your Roots Blake Thorson