Don Wissman joined the Peters 4-H Club in St. Clair County at age 10 and remained active in 4-H through all four years of college at MSU. He was a member of the State 4-H Livestock and Dairy Judging teams and traveled to Australia as a participant in the International Four-H Youth Exchange (IFYE) program. After serving as a Captain in the U.S. Air Force, Wissman pursued advanced degrees in agricultural economics at MSU and Kansas State University. In 1971 he founded DPRA Inc., a research and environmental consulting firm headquartered in Manhattan, Kansas. Under his leadership, DPRA grew from a staff of 10 to 170 full-time professional consultants specializing in economics, policy analysis and information management in over 20 different countries. Between 1996 and 1999, Wissman served as the founder and president of the Grain Industry Alliance, a consortium between Kansas State University, the American Institute of Banking, DPRA and the Federal Grain Marketing Production Center. A member of Omicron Delta Epsilon, the American Economics Association and the Board of Directors for Frontier Farm Credit, Wissman has received numerous honors and awards. His other civic affiliations include the Manhattan Arts Center, the Coronado Area Council of the Boy Scouts of America, the First Baptist Church, the Kansas Baptist Foundation and chair of the Board of Directors at Central Baptist Theological Seminary. He has been a past president of the Michigan 4-H International Alumni Association, vice president of the IFYE Association of the USA and is a founding donor of the Michigan 4-H International Endowment Fund. At present, Wissman is an adjunct professor at Kansas State University.