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Varner must have recognized quickly that Markel was exactly the kind of person that Charles Koch was searching for to fill the corporate ranks. If there is a single example of the prototypical Koch employee, it was Lynn Markel. He was born and raised on a farm outside of Dodge City, Kansas, so he was accustomed to a seven-day workweek. He attended Kansas State University and had no illusions that a college degree conferred on him anything more than the right to work hard for a living. After graduating, he became an officer in the US Air Force, where he served for four years, so he learned to think of himself as part of a larger organization and put the needs of his teammates before his own. Markel had moved to Wichita right after his stint in the air force to work as a financial controller with the Cessna Aircraft Company. Working for a large, publicly traded firm hadn’t agreed with Markel. There was a lot of bureaucracy to contend with; he wanted to be more entrepreneurial. He left Cessna and joined a large real estate firm that was expanding rapidly. But that firm went bust, and Markel landed in his current job as chief financial officer for the chain of television stations.
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Christopher Leonard (Kochland: The Secret History of Koch Industries and Corporate Power in America)