Metro Wichita

Wichita provides a thriving environment for entrepreneurs and boasts a long list of successful ventures to prove it. Given the city’s Air Capital of the World status, it should come as no surprise that the modern companies Hawker Beechcraft Corp., Cessna Aircraft Co. and Bombardier Aerospace Learjet Inc. were founded here. There are many more high-profile companies that originated here, as well, including Pizza Hut, Coleman, Koch Industries, Rent-A-Center, White Castle and Taco Tico.

Wichita State University continues the city’s rich tradition of business innovation with its Center for Entrepreneurship, which offers undergraduate and graduate classes and degrees. In 1986, the university moved the original Pizza Hut building to the campus as a permanent symbol of entrepreneurial spirit and to honor Frank and Dan Carney, brothers who launched the company in 1958 when they were students at WSU.