Tom Katus’ firm, TK Associates International, has assisted in the launching and development of more than 50 small businesses, tourism attractions, tribal programs and colleges in South Dakota and the Great Plains region. Tom has led numerous South Dakota business and education delegations to Africa, the Middle East and New Zealand.

He placed more than 30 international students at SDSM&T and other South Dakota colleges and universities. He is Vice President of Dacotah Territory International Visitors Program, which sponsors approximately 100 international visitors to the Black Hills annually. He was a member of the National Advisory Council to the U.S. Small Business Administration for two terms.

He is an active member of the Rapid City Chamber of Commerce’s Cultural Diversity Committee, for which he helped organize Small and Minority Business Seminars; volunteer founder of Bridges for Intercultural Understanding, a community group that facilitates public dialogue on intercultural issues, both global and local; and active volunteer with SANI-T (Society for the Advancement of Native Interests Today), an organization that provides cultural competency training to businesses and agencies and uses restorative justice techniques to resolve victim/offender racial conflicts.

Katus was born and raised in McIntosh, SD on the Standing Rock Sioux Indian Reservation and has been a lifelong resident of South Dakota. He volunteered for the U.S. Army National Guard directly out of high school. He received advanced combat engineer training at Ft. Belvoir, VA, where he fired a perfect score on the machine gun range. Tom was South Dakota’s first Peace Corps Volunteer, serving in President Kennedy’s first group, Tanganyika I.

Since his days as a student at SDSM&T, he has lived in Rapid City – continuously for the past 18 years. Tom’s three children, two of whom are adopted, were raised in Rapid City. He has six wonderful grandchildren. Following his Civil Engineering training at Mines, he received a B.S. in Political Science at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and completed graduate studies in International Administration at UWM and UCLA.

He has conducted scores of workshops and seminars for small businesses, professional associations and colleges and has published more than 30 professional books and articles. Katus is a part-time Special Correspondent to The Lakota Country Times and editor of The Last Mile, the newsletter of the Black Hills Running Club.

He recently edited Western Dakota Tech’s proposal for a $2 million federal grant request to enable WDT to provide distance learning higher education to all their students throughout western South Dakota.