There are less drastic options than Kansas that would work fine. Chicago has an international airport. Indianapolis as well (though it’s not listed in Wikipedia, which makes me wonder how complete that is). St Louis and Minneapolis are major hubs. Large airports besides those I’m less familiar with, but if you’re planning to process corn waste what you need is rail access, not air. So then you can add a lot more of the midwest and still maybe be able to find Bulgogi for lunch. The Quad Cities, Peoria, Milwaukee, Des Moines, Omaha.

The wikipedia page for Wichita, Kansas claims Boeing, Airbus, and Learjet among others operate design and manufacturing facilities there. You should be able to find a metal fabricator and a home depot.

John Deere might find that interesting. Now headquartered in Moline, IL (Iowa border), they started up and built their company exactly in the rural America (Grand Detour, IL), when Home Depot didn't even exist. Yes it was over 150 years ago, but there's nothing that prevents you from starting an agtech company where the resources are if they are in the midwest. The Kauffman Foundation, a major entrepreneurial resource is based in Kansas City, MO.

>> You try prototyping an experimental cutting-edge technology in the middle of a corn field 2 hours from the nearest Home Depot or metal fabricator.

To be honest, to me it sounds like a dream job.

Oh for heaven’s sake. You can find a whole bunch of talented mech e’s and ag e’s all over the corn belt that already live there and like it. John Deere in Waterloo is just one name of many. My nephew works at Ag Leader (he’s an EE). There is a lot of ag engineering talent in the midwest, it is silly to try to recruit it here in Sili Valley.

This is like the joke about the drunk looking for his car keys under the street light because the light is better than whete he dropped them.