Kenny Kane: From Family Roots to Forest Stewardship

Name: Kenny Kane

Preferred Pronouns: He/His

Hometown & Current Town: Kane, PA/Dubois, PA

Graduation Year: BS 2014

Major: B.S. Forest Science

Additional Degree & Institution: A.S. Forest Technology, Penn College

Current Professional Title: President and Owner

Name of Employer: Generations Forestry

Brief Description of Your Role/Profession: As the owner of Generations Forestry and as consulting foresters, we predominantly do private timberland management throughout Pennsylvania and New York. To put it simply, we're picking and choosing what trees should be cut, what trees should stay, putting a volume and value to those trees that are harvested, and making sure we're managing the forest for the next generation. We are looking at things not just for today, but what the forest is going to be for 100 years.

We do a lot of timber sales, marking timber, timber appraisals for estate planning and management plans, and timber valuations for people who want to know what they own. We also do a lot of wildlife habitat and timber stand improvement work. There are also herbicide applications, invasive plant and pest control that could include aerial applications, and almost anything that might fall in between.

We don't give ourselves enough credit for all the things we do. We manage more acres for Timber Investment Management Organizations that own more than 140,000 acres of land. Then we manage enough 70,000-75,000 acres of privately owned land, which can be everything from a 10-acre woodlot to a fourth-generation family operation of 3,000 acres. I could be working with a Wells Fargo hedge fund today and the local guy down the street who owns 20 acres. It's very diverse.

Why did you choose Penn State?

My father, Ken Kane, worked for an individual for almost 40 years and then he bought out his business partner. I knew if I wanted to own, buy, or manage the business, I wasn't going to be able to do it with just an associate's degree. I knew I'd have to go on to University Park to get my bachelor's degree. That was the big thing, I knew I wanted to work for and with my dad and carry on the family business.

I learned how to do my job at Penn College. Specifically, how to be a forester and how to do all my field work. But I learned why we do what we do as foresters at Penn State.

One of the biggest things Penn State provided was the opportunity to be around more people, different people, people from all over the country and the world. The social aspect helped me learn how to deal with clients. Like I said, I will deal with a farmer and a hedge fund manager all in the same 24-hour period. I'm probably not going to have the same conversation with both.

What inspired you to pursue your degree?

As a teen, if you had asked me what I was going to do when I grew up, I wouldn't have said forester. I wanted to be an oil man. I worked for an excavation company in high school, and I was originally going to go to school for petroleum technology and geology. My great grandparents were in the oil business, and I had been exposed to it through timber appraisals for oil and gas.

Then I thought I wanted to do welding for a while, so I spent almost a whole summer welding. It's a great skill, but I realized it wasn't going to be my career.

Forestry was just part of my life. My dad worked a lot, sometimes six or seven days a week. The business is demanding. If I wanted to spend time with my dad I had to go to work.

I'd be working log sales with him with people all over the world. By the time I was 14, I had taken part in log sales with five different countries. I was meeting people from places like Germany, France, Spain, and China. I got that exposure as a kid. I liked it. Then also being exposed to my dad's friends and colleagues within the profession, I liked being around them. His friends are what drove it home for me. I realized I wanted to work with those types of people.

If you enjoy the people you're around, it makes going to work easier.

What clubs and organizations were you involved in?

I was in the student chapter of the Society of American Foresters.

What is a favorite Penn State memory?

It was probably the late 90s. Penn State was playing Bowling Green. My dad got tickets from his old business partner who didn't feel like going to the game. It was my dad, me, my sister, Michelle, and my great uncle Skip. The four of us went to that game and it was my first time in Beaver Stadium. I thought to myself, "I'm going to be here one day." Just being in the stadium was so cool. That's still my favorite Penn State moment.

You now own and lead Generations Forestry. How did you prepare to take that step to become owner and what advice do you have for students who are interested in being entrepreneurs and business owners?

Being overly confident was the best and worst thing I was. If you don't have it in your mind that you can do something, you can easily fall and fail. But you also can't be too confident. You need to go for outreach and to the right people. For myself, and my dad would probably agree, he didn't give me a lot of advice. I went to a lot of colleagues and business people in other fields and asked them for advice.

It's so important to surround yourself with a good team. I was very lucky with my dad and our colleagues and even our clients who have known me my entire life. When we called them to say we were making the transition to my ownership, a lot of them asked the tough questions about whether I was ready and some joked that it was about time I took over. That helped give me the confidence.

I think a big thing is being involved in your profession. Whether you're a forester, an educator, an engineer, a welder, or whatever, the impact and involvement with the professional organizations have made waves for me. Being involved in your profession and respected by your peers is important.

I was involved as a student in the Society of American Foresters and now I'm involved with the Pennsylvania Forestry Association, the Pennsylvania Forest Products Association, and the Association of Consulting Foresters. It's often a day or more a week of my time. But when you can you're working on a deal with someone, having that established connection through being involved in your field adds credibility. That professional outreach and involvement has benefited me immensely.

What are one or two of your proudest accomplishments in which your Penn State education played a role?

I was doing work with a well-known Penn State alum recently. The Penn State connection has been vital. These are lifelong and life-lasting connections.

Doing be afraid to have tough conversations with professors and professionals. I’ve had professors that I couldn't have conversations with as a student, but now we work together on research projects and they're coming to us for outreach. I've been invited back to campus to speak to classes. I never thought I'd be doing those types of things.

I was on a call last month for the Association of Consulting Foresters meeting with national forest directors from the West. We're talking Alaska, Oregon, California, Montana, and Washington. The first thing they said to me was, "Hey Kenny, three of us are Penn Staters." It just changes the whole tempo of the conversation.

How has your Penn State education influenced your career or life?

The connections you make at Penn State are incredible. You graduate thinking you know everything, but you don't know anything. The education was excellent, but at 21 I was only looking at what I could see. I was home during the summer doing the work and thought I knew everything because I was on logging jobs. I was marking and selling timber. But years later, you remember things from specific classes like a regression model or a growth model and you're looking at site indexes while you're helping clients make million-dollar decisions. Having that background and knowing that stuff has really paid off.

What has been the best advice you’ve ever received?

My dad's best friend once said, "If you do what's right for the land, everything else will come." So as a forester, if you do what's right, economics are going to play into it. If you do what's right for the land, you’re going to get the regeneration you're looking for. If you do what's right for the land, you're going to be doing best for the landowner. This goes on to what's best for the soil, what's best for the water, and what's best for the wildlife. So if you do what's best for the land, everything else will come.

Why are you proud to be a Penn State Ag Sciences alum?

Pennsylvania means "Penns Woods." We have 17 million acres of forest land and 14 million acres of it is privately owned. The need for forestry professionals is very high.

Pennsylvania is the largest producer of hardwoods in the U.S. There's a pride of profession in this. Penn State's the only place in Pennsylvania where you can get a bachelor's degree in forest science. It is crucial to Pennsylvania to have this major and education out of Penn State and the College of Ag Sciences.