{"id":25710,"date":"2019-03-29T09:21:31","date_gmt":"2019-03-29T15:21:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=25710"},"modified":"2019-03-29T09:21:31","modified_gmt":"2019-03-29T15:21:31","slug":"new-senator-is-ready-for-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=25710","title":{"rendered":"New senator is ready for work"},"content":{"rendered":"

Above: Sen. Ben Hansen relaxes with his wife, Jill, and daughter, Olivia.<\/em><\/p>\n

Sen. Ben Hansen doesn\u2019t like to sit still.<\/p>\n

The new senator from Blair owns two chiropractic clinics, an equipment rental business and a company that turns reclaimed wood into furniture.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I\u2019ve got a two-year-old, that\u2019s the biggest [job]!\u201d Hansen said of his daughter, Olivia.<\/p>\n

Hansen has a long history of staying busy. He was born in Schuyler, where he qualified for the 1998 boys\u2019 track and field state meet in the 110-meter hurdles. After earning a psychology degree from Wayne State, Hansen graduated summa cum laude from Palmer College of Chiropractic in Davenport, Iowa in 2007. Shortly after, he and his wife, Jill, settled in Blair.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe loved the people, we loved the atmosphere and we always wanted to move back to Nebraska,\u201d Hansen said. \u201cAnd it\u2019s just the right size. If it takes me longer than five minutes to get from Point A to Point B, I don\u2019t like it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hansen, who served the past four years on the Blair City Council, didn\u2019t consider becoming a candidate for the District 16 seat until outgoing Sen. Lydia Brasch encouraged him to run.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve known each other for years,\u201d Hansen said. \u201cShe thought I\u2019d make a good candidate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Life, though, hasn\u2019t stopped since he was sworn in. He still sees patients at his practices in Blair and Omaha on Saturdays and days off from the Legislature.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve got patients scheduled for the next six months,\u201d Hansen said. \u201cI\u2019ve still got to pay the bills.\u201d<\/p>\n

He pays some of those bills through Heritage Barnwood Company, which he started in 2017 with two partners. The group takes salvaged wood, often from razed barns around Nebraska, and turns it into tables, chairs and other pieces. The company recently sold a bench made from milled wood taken from a building on the campus of the former Dana College.<\/p>\n

Each item includes a plaque detailing the wood\u2019s origins.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery piece of furniture we sell has a story to tell,\u201d Hansen said.<\/p>\n

And if all of that wasn\u2019t enough to occupy his time, Hansen recently bought a 1957 Chevrolet in need of restoration. It\u2019s something he\u2019s never done before.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought the best way to learn was to get my hands dirty,\u201d he said. \u201cOne of these years I might be able to drive it to Lincoln. It might be a few sessions; maybe after reelection.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sen. Ben Hansen doesn\u2019t like to sit still.<\/p>\n

The new senator from Blair owns two chiropractic clinics, an equipment rental business and a company that turns reclaimed wood into furniture.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25711,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[18],"tags":[252],"class_list":["post-25710","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-senator-features","tag-sen-ben-hansen"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/MeetBHansen_blog.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25710","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25710"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25710\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25719,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25710\/revisions\/25719"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/25711"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}