Duane Enger, 34, is a West Point graduate who served in Iraq. Now he is development manager for Tradewind Energy of Lenexa, which creates wind farms. Enger lives in Overland Park with his wife and their three children.

How did your military career influence your decision to get into wind energy?

In Iraq, I remember driving down a road with a mile-long line of people waiting to get gas from a gas station, while a quarter mile away, two 6-foot-diameter pipelines were pumping oil to Kuwait. That was a snapshot that stayed in my mind. One of the most oil-rich nations on the planet, but they’ve never invested in their ability to take that resource and turn it into something they can use.

I’m a patriot, so I came back to this country and thought, how can I help harness our own natural resources? Our reliance on others for energy is a threat to our national security.

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