The following article which appeared in an October 1975 edition of the Sterling Bulletin highlights the importance of family at Engelland Farms.

Once A Farmer…

Back to the Soil for Missile Engineer

What’s a missile engineer doing in the cab of a farm tractor east of Sterling preparing ground for fall planting? It’s difficult for John Engelland to explain. He feels that he now is doing something that matters after spending about nine years developing the mechanics of a U.S. Air Force training target system.

Until September of last year, John was one of the development engineers on the Air Force’s High Altitude Supersonic Target (HAST) being fabricated at Beech Aircraft in Wichita and test flow at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla. He was promoted to program manager before he left.

It was a challenging assignment but the years on the drawing board and endless hours spent commuting to Florida for a test-firing lasting only minutes were sometimes less than satisfying.

He was living in Rose Hill at the time, a few miles south of Wichita. Farming in the evenings and on weekends seemed to put things in proper perspective again. He grew up in Sterling and his rural background never paled, even after years in quest of an engineering degree an stature as a designer.

“It really wasn’t much of a change,” John said of his decision to leave Beech and return to near where his great-grandfather had homesteaded. “I was an engineer full time and a farmer part time. Now, I’ve just changed my priorities.”

John believes that he has acquired the best of two worlds. He admits that he probably always wanted to be a farmer, at heart, and he has retained his engineering credentials by performing outside consulting work in heating and air conditioning.

Now, he’s working 1,300 acres in wheat, alfalfa, milo and corn plus a dairy and cattle operation. “I still feel like I’m on vacation.” he laughed, explaining that he now has time to spend with his boys – Brent, who is in kindergarten; Shawn, in the sixth grade, and Mark a third grader. John and his wife can plan on doing things together with the knowledge that he won’t be away from home for days and weeks at a time.

“it’s only work if you’d rather be doing something else.” John admits that the statement isn’t his, but it fits his lifestyle.

He was leafing through a magazine several years ago on an airliner while returning from a test firing in Florida when the phrase caught his eye. The thought had worlds to say to a man who wasn’t sure he wanted to make a career out of sitting through meetings with vice presidents and listening to military reviews.

“I figured out at one time that I spent about 500 hours of overtime in six months at the HAST project that I knew I’d never be paid for. That was time away from my family, and the boys were growing up fast.

“Things seem to be in a lot better perspective now.  I’m working harder  and perhaps longer – but it’s work I like and it’s mine.”

He received word last July 4 from a friend who called to say that the HAST has made its first successful flight. The message was relayed by his family via CB radio in his tractor cab.

A farmer with an engineering background has to chuckle and shake his head with design of some machinery components, John confesses. But such discomfort passes as he watches the earth turn behind his cultivator and his boys busy with their 4-H projects.

And his wife, Judy, who grew up here, has not objected to being back in Sterling.