Remembering Kirk and Jim Hansen: Employees remember 2 businessmen
IDAHO FALLS, Idaho (KIFI/KIDK) - The funerals for members of the Hansen family killed in the Nov. 30 plane crash in South Dakota only show a glimpse of how much the Eastern Idaho community is grieving.
"They wanted to be able to help people and kind of like the scripture says and 'find their reward in heaven and not here on earth,'" said Andrew Mangeris, the Chief Product Officer for Kyani Inc.
The Hansens were known for their love of their families, their hard work, and their service to others.
"One thing I admired so much from Kirk was that you know, he was such a good husband, a good dad, a good grandpa, a good brother, and I always wanted to be like that. He made me step up my game," said Angel Olver, an independent distributor for Kyani.
Jim and Kirk followed in their father Jim Sr.'s footsteps and genuinely loved working in the family businesses, Conrad & Bischoff Inc., KJ's Super Stores, and wellness company Kyani Inc., building their mission to make the world a better place.
"They made everyone feel special, whether you were a person who put bottles in boxes or whether you were managing a building or whether you were running the company," said Marshall Hurst, a Kyani distribution worker. "He valued each associate that worked for us."
"They are people that have helped me to know the importance of the one, how I can turn around and be like them and treat each individual as if they are the most important person in the world," said Mary Millward, an independent business owner with Kyani.
One person at a time, worker after worker talked about how knowing Jim and Kirk changed their lives.
"One hundred percent they have changed the world, yes. They have changed the world. They've changed my world and my family's world and they will continue to change it for generations to come," added Millward.
The Kyani company has a global outreach with a strong presence in more than 60 countries. And with that business comes an opportunity to give humanitarian aid.
In Mexico, they have built schools and fed the hungry.
The Mexican government even use their model to improve schools nationally.
"Now we have hundreds of indigenous students with this great opportunity to change lives because of education," said Erich Diestel, a manager for Kyani's Caring Hands program in Mexico. "Something remarkable is that the government, the local, state, and the federal government has taken our model to open more than 30 universities and actually there are in this Kyani Caring Hands model more than a thousand university students."
Their loss will be profoundly felt throughout the world, but their mission and their dreams of making the world a better place will live on.
"We are going to miss them, but that sorrow is only there because there is love there. And I think that's what we need to do is to share that love with others to fill that void," Mangeris said.
The Hansens will be profoundly missed, remembered not for how they died, but how they lived.
