David Huff thought he was going to become a landscaper.

He started his business in high school and planned to take a two-year landscaping certificate program at Michigan State University before his mother convinced him to start a four-year program, just in case he decided he “really liked college.”

As it turned out, she was right. Huff really did like college. He ended up studying plant genetics at Michigan State, and some of his professors encouraged him to apply to graduate school at the University of California, Davis.

“I decided I wanted to go into plant genetics, and I applied to UC Davis to be in the wheat breeding program,” Huff said. “[They] didn’t have the funds to support me, but the new turf grass geneticist did. And so, I thought, well, I’ll do my master’s on turf, and then I’ll get back into wheat. It’s all genetics.”

Instead, Huff fell in love with turfgrass and never looked back.

“As a wheat breeder, you work on wheat,” Huff said. “My project would have been to tweak one little amino acid to make a protein to make a slight alteration in the baking quality of bread. But in turfgrass, so much needed to be done. We knew so little about all those different species. There’s just so much to do.”

Huff got his master’s and PhD at UC Davis and then did a post-doc at Texas A&M before being hired as a turfgrass breeder by a private company in Texas. He then did another post-doc at Rutgers before finally coming to Penn State in 1994.

“I was [at Rutgers] for about three and a half years, and that was a great education, but I wanted my own program, and the Penn State position opened up, and I applied for it and got it,” Huff said.

Huff was hired in July and started teaching as soon as the semester started in August. He also started researching and breeding new grass seeds for a multitude of projects.

“What I do is I breed improved varieties for our industry,” Huff said. “When I develop a variety, test it nationally, and it’s going to be a benefit to society, I’ll release it to a seed company, and they produce all of our turf grass seed out in Oregon and then distribute it out to the public.”

There was one type of grass that Huff had been studying for a long time, and finally got permission to breed and study it at Penn State.

“So, the species in question is Poa annua, also known as annual bluegrass,” he said. “Seven out of the top 10 best golf courses in the U.S. are Poa annua. So, I quickly realized that there’s no one out there helping these really high-end courses with Poa annua putting greens.”

Huff saw an opportunity and took it. He spent over a decade breeding the grass, but when he finally started the seed production process, he lost the dwarfism and high shoot-density traits that made the grasses so valuable. This setback prompted another decade-plus of research, during which Huff enlisted the help of three graduate students to develop seeds that maintained the desirable traits.

But even after creating a successful seed, there was still another barrier in Huff’s path.

“I finally deciphered how to breed it, how to produce seed, but because it was such a specialty area, I talked to the growers out in Oregon, and they weren’t going to produce it,” he said.

Huff went to the Office of Technology Transfer (OTT), and it suggested that he launch his own seed company startup.

“I was kind of shocked to hear that, it’s like, how could I do that?” he said. “I’m a university researcher, and I would be starting a seed company to sell the products of my research. That’s a clear conflict of interest.”

OTT assured Huff that there were systems in place to help manage the process, and Huff utilized the resources at Penn State to found his startup, PennPoa.

“I had put about 27 years into this project, and I didn’t want it to die on the vine, so I thought this is going to be the only way, so let’s do it,” Huff said.

PennPoa quickly found success as the only company selling high-quality Poa annua seeds for golf courses. Huff’s first harvest was in 2024, before he became licensed to sell. When he got the license in 2025, he immediately sold out. He also instantly sold all of his 2025 harvest.

“I have orders that will probably take up all of my 2026 harvest, and I have orders going up to 2027,” he said. “I think the excitement in the industry is that they’ve never had a seeded product of Poa annua for golf course putting greens before.”

Huff thought that most of his customers would be golf courses that already had Poa annua greens and wanted his seed to repair or redo their greens. But as it turns out, his biggest customers have been golf courses that use other grasses but want to convert their greens to Poa annua.

Huff has also achieved personal success through this project, earning the Research Innovator Award from the College of Agricultural Sciences.

“I’m going to give it a couple more years,” Huff said. “I want to make sure this isn’t just a flash in the pan, that it’s a real thing, but if it continues to be successful, then what I’ll do is I’ll pick up the operation, move off-site, and start seed production.”

After his own success, Huff encourages anyone who wants to do something similar to seriously consider pursuing it.

“There are so many opportunities, and I think there are fewer people like me needing those resources than there are resources to be given,” he said. “If anyone has ever thought about doing something like that, I think it’s a great time to get started, and there certainly are a lot of resources here.”