His professional career can be said to have started at age 11, when he sold his first painting to a wealthy German farmer for $8 (approximately $110 in 2014 US dollars).
Upon graduation, Kouba traveled the United States, painting Coca-Cola logos on commercial signs, before the popularization of decals.
As a young man, Kouba was commissioned by the city of Hutchinson, Minnesota to create a sculpture of Chief Little Crow, a Dakota leader.
He produced the following in his Minneapolis-based studio: The Old Dutch windmill on potato chips bags and boxes, Schmidt beer wildlife scenes, and the Red Owl grocery store's logo.
Kouba patented three inventions: the original Art-O-Graph and Map-O-Graph, which project enlarged images of artwork and maps.