Ten Carl R. Ice College of Engineering alumni honored for early career success

Ten Carl R. Ice College of Engineering alumni have been selected to receive Professional Progress Awards. Top row, from left: Sarah Appleton, Corey Brown, Will Burton, Kyle Hill and Bryce Huschka. Bottom: Jonathan King, Ben McBride, Scott Miller, Brian Moore and Trevor Wooten. | Download this photo.

By Grant Guggisberg
Carl R. Ice College of Engineering Communications and Marketing

Friday, Feb. 14, 2025

MANHATTAN — The Kansas State University Carl R. Ice College of Engineering will honor 10 alumni for significant early to mid-career success at its annual Seaton Society Award Celebration on March 7.

Recipients of the college's Professional Progress Award were nominated by their respective department heads and confirmed by Matt O'Keefe, dean of engineering.

The following are the 2025 Professional Progress Award honorees.

Sarah Appleton

Sarah Appleton, Atlanta, Georgia, is a 2005 K-State graduate with bachelor’s and master’s degrees in architectural engineering.

She is a principal at Wallace Design Collective, an Engineering News-Record Top-400 design firm headquartered in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Appleton joined Wallace in 2009 in its Tulsa office, and during her time there, she was promoted to associate.

In 2014, Appleton moved to Atlanta and established a new office for Wallace there, assuming responsibility for the firm’s overall strategy, business development and operations at the new location. In 2017, she became a principal and shareholder of the firm. During her time in Atlanta, Appleton was instrumental in Wallace’s acquisition of a prestigious southeastern structural engineering firm, greatly expanding Wallace’s presence in the southeastern United States.

Outside of her employment, Appleton has served the structural engineering profession and the AEC industry with her volunteer efforts. These efforts include local and national board positions with the National Council of Structural Engineers Associations, serving as president of the Atlanta chapter of the Society for Marketing Professional Services and organizing numerous industry and community sponsored charity events in and around Tulsa and Atlanta.

She currently serves on the planning committees for the UGA Ed Hoard Memorial Golf Tournament and the Atlanta area Boy Scouts of America.

Corey Brown

Corey Brown, Greenwood, Missouri, is a 2010 K-State graduate with a bachelor’s degree in biological and agricultural engineering. He also holds an MBA from the University of Kansas.

Brown began his career as a plant engineer for an oil seed processor in Emporia before moving into project engineering at Schenck Process in Kansas City, Missouri. In 2014, he transitioned to Burger & Brown Engineering as a project engineer. Burger & Brown Engineering is a precision computer numerical control manufacturer supporting companies across the world. Over the years, he has held several positions including engineering manager, vice president and president beginning in 2021.

In June 2023, Brown purchased the company and became president and CEO. Brown enjoys working with his team and customers to create manufacturing solutions and produce quality products and services.

He is active in Vistage and the local National Tooling & Machining Association chapter in Kansas City. Brown and his wife Erin have three boys: Beckett, Ryker and Kash.

Will Burton

Will Burton, Durango, Colorado, is a 2003 K-State graduate with a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering. He also holds an MBA from the University of Texas.

With 20 years of experience at BP, he has advanced from engineering roles to operational management and executive leadership. Currently, he serves as the chief operating officer at Archaea Energy, a BP subsidiary focused on generating renewable energy from landfills and organic waste.

In his role, Burton oversees HSE, engineering, development, operations, joint-venture management and carbon capture businesses. He is active in BP’s Women’s International Network and serves as the executive sponsor for the BP Denver chapter.

Burton is also a member of the Industry Advisory Council for the Alan Levin Department of Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering at K-State. He and his wife Skyler have three children: Charlotte, Liam and Harry.

Kyle Hill

Kyle Hill, Lenexa, is a 2007 and 2011 K-State graduate with a bachelor's in computer science and a master's in software engineering.

He currently serves as a software engineering manager at Garmin in Olathe, Kansas, where he leads teams of software engineers and user experience designers in the development of new GPS-enabled products.

Hill started his career working for Garmin as an intern during summer 2007. After joining Garmin full-time in 2008, he contributed to multiple automotive GPS navigation products and led the development of Garmin's first cellular-enabled GPS navigator. In 2011, he transitioned into software engineering management to lead Garmin's first efforts to integrate dash cameras into GPS navigators.

Hill has remained connected to K-State over the years, attending career fairs to recruit new talent and serving on the computer science department's advisory board. Hill and his wife Kimberly have two boys — Isaac and Carson — who enjoy travel, biking and swimming.

Bryce Huschka

Bryce Huschka, Houston, is a 2007 K-State graduate with bachelor’s and master’s degrees in industrial engineering.

He is currently the global butyl business manager for ExxonMobil, overseeing strategy, product management, growth and operations across six assets worldwide. Previously, he served as the North America consumer marketing and growth manager, leading the consumer automotive business and brands such as Mobil 1. He also held roles in partner strategy in Asia, sales and distribution in the western U.S., and various financial and analytics roles.

Huschka is passionate about higher education innovation. He founded K-State Skill X in 2017, a program that helps students be more intentional and engaged by reimagining the student experience as a “career startup” experience. The program has been successfully integrated into the industrial engineering curriculum, and he teaches it as an adjunct faculty member in the Carl R. Ice College of Engineering.

Huschka and his wife Lauren have three children: Maren, Milly and Ford.

Jonathan King

Jonathan King, Oakland, California, is a 2007 K-State graduate with a bachelor’s in chemical engineering. He also holds a doctorate in chemical engineering from the University of California, Berkeley.

He is co-founder and chief scientist at Atom Computing, where he leads the teams responsible for quantum-error correction, theoretical-atomic physics, benchmarking and use-case development.

King has more than a decade of experience as a researcher in quantum technologies and holds multiple patents.

Before joining Atom Computing, he was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, Berkeley, where he worked on a variety of experimental and theoretical projects in the realm of nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy.

Ben McBride

Ben McBride, Tijeras, New Mexico, is a 2003 and 2007 K-State graduate with a bachelor’s in computer engineering and a master’s in electrical engineering.

He began his career as a computer security researcher at Sandia National Laboratories. During 11 years at the labs, McBride led several research teams and developed significant national security programs. He represented the labs at international workshops, presented numerous peer-reviewed conference talks and received multiple invention and technical excellence awards. In addition to his technical responsibilities, McBride was often asked to brief research and strategic directions to lab and government leadership.

In 2018, he moved to Oak Ridge National Laboratory to build a new vulnerability research program. In this capacity, he developed a team, wrote funding proposals and built collaborative research partnerships with other labs. In 2020, McBride moved to his current company, L3Harris Trenchant, as a senior researcher.

Since then, he has held several roles, including deputy director of research, and is currently serving as the Android team lead. McBride also enjoys participating in the Pwn2Own hacking contest, where he is a two-time winner.

Scott Miller

Scott Miller, Denver, is a 2001 K-State graduate with a bachelor's degree in construction science and management.

He started with GE Johnson Construction Company, now known as DPR Construction, 24 years ago as an intern and has risen to his current role as business unit leader for the mountain states region. Miller oversees a portfolio that averages more than $600 million in annual revenue and provides guidance to more than 400 employees throughout the Rocky Mountains.

Miller is committed to integrating DPR Construction deeper into Colorado and Wyoming and is passionate about being seen as a local company that is indispensable to the region's rapid growth while still having access to the support of a $10 billion global business when needed.

Miller remains connected to K-State, recently serving a three-year term on the Architectural Engineering and Construction Science and Management Advisory Council and actively recruiting students from the program. Miller and his wife Stephanie have two girls: Madeline and Abby.

Brian Moore

Brian Moore, Columbus, Ohio, is a 2012 K-State graduate with a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering. He also holds a doctorate in electrical engineering from the University of Michigan.

He currently serves as CEO of Voxel51, a startup company he co-founded in 2018 that provides software that tens of thousands of AI engineers rely on to simplify and automate how they explore, visualize and curate visual data throughout the AI development process. Voxel51’s software enables organizations across industries including automotive, agriculture, healthcare, manufacturing, robotics, security, retail and defense to bring AI-powered solutions to market that increase safety, improve quality and enhance customer experiences.

Under his leadership, Voxel51 recently raised $30 million in Series B funding led by Bessemer Venture Partners to accelerate its growth and advance its mission to make visual AI a reality.

Prior to founding Voxel51, Moore was a quantitative analyst at Koch Industries in Wichita, Kansas, and a software engineer at Google in Mountain View, California. Moore and his wife Meriah currently reside in Columbus, Ohio.

Trevor Wooten

Trevor Wooten, Wichita, is a 2005 K-State graduate with a bachelor’s in civil engineering.

He works at Baughman Company in Wichita, where he manages the site design team, leading a team of creative design professionals in bringing life to clients’ projects. Wooten specializes in site grading, hydrology, utility design and environmental permitting. He is a licensed professional engineer in Kansas, Missouri and Oklahoma.

He stays active in his relationship with K-State, recruiting at career fairs, playing golf at Colbert Hills, attending football and basketball games and proudly watching his niece play volleyball for the Wildcats. He is a founder and current board member of the South Central Kansas STEM Foundation and a past-president of the Wichita chapter of the Kansas Society of Professional Engineers.

Wooten credits his success to the inspiration he gets from working with his team and the peace and joy from living with his wife Angie and daughters Avery and Elise.

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