Founder, Heartland Pure Water Co
Gary Kral is a CPA by training, which is not the background most people expect from a water filtration company, and it is exactly the point. A career in accounting teaches you to be reliable, detail oriented, and the kind of person who does not disappear halfway through a job.
He learned how rare that is the same way everyone does. He once had five contractors come out to quote a fence and never received a single quote from any of them. He hired someone to finish his basement and spent weeks not knowing whether the man would show up that day. Nothing about those jobs was complicated. They just needed someone who did what they said they would do.
Clean water is not a business idea he found. It is something his household already lives. Gary and his family have installed filtration in both of the homes they have owned, and health is not a side interest for him: he plays soccer, he lifts, he coached his son's team for years, and he pays attention to what goes into his body. Water was simply the first thing they fixed, because it is the one that touches everything else.
He is building Heartland Pure Water Co to bring that to other families in Wichita, and to prove a point his own son is about to test. His son graduates high school this year and is heading toward an electrician program. Gary's generation was taught to look past the trades. He thinks that was a mistake, and he wants to help build the kind of company that makes people think differently about them.
Call Heartland and you get a straight answer about your water, a price you can understand, and someone who shows up when he said he would.