Tom grew up on a dairy farm near the small Iowa town of Bellevue. He graduated from Northeast Iowa Community College and started in the lighting business over 30 years ago with an Allen Bradley Distributor. Tom and his wonderful wife Sarah have 4 great kids – Katelyn, Madison / Mitchell (twins, but have different birthdates!), and Samantha. Their 1st grandson AJ is their everything and so much fun. He enjoys spending time with the family on their little 60 acre “hobby farm” along with their dogs, cats, goats. You can usually find them riding around the farm on ATV’s and UTV’s or hanging out on a small campground down by the Little Platte River that runs thru the middle of our farm. The Knockel family is all about Wisconsin sports teams including the Badgers, Packers, Brewers, and Bucks. In his free time, Tom does a little hunting and fishing, likes to repair old things, build new things, and spend time outside on our farm.
Tom has always loved the good people of Kansas and shares that as he was moving to Arizona right out of high School, and while driving thru Kansas, he hit a big 16 point buck and totaled his car. It was 11:30 at night and just outside Emporia. Needless to say, he needed some help in a town / state he had never been in before, and according to Tom, ALL the people in Kansas were very good to him.