Dr. Wayne Hanna – The Institute’s New Director of Forage Research
By Jon Cooner
Institute Director of Special Projects
After a long and exhaustive search, The Whitetail Institute of North America is pleased to introduce the newest member of the Whitetail Institute team, Dr. Wayne Hanna, our new Director of Forge Research. Chosen from a long list of potential candidates, Dr. Hanna is exceptionally qualified to assist the Institute in its continuing quest to provide its Field Testers the highest quality forage products in the world.
Since its very beginning, The Whitetail Institute has sought out the best scientists available to assist in its research and development efforts. In 1988, the Institute’s first product, Imperial Whitetail Clover took the deer hunting and management world by storm and established itself as the benchmark for the entire industry. Since then, there has been no looking back.
The backbone of Imperial Whitetail Clover and the Institute’s first proprietary clover variety, Advantage, was developed by world-renowned plant geneticist Dr. Wiley Johnson, who preceded Dr. Hanna as Director of Forage Research for the Institute. In developing Advantage, Dr. Johnson cross-bred the best candidates from over 100 different clover varieties from across the globe, eliminating all but the best resulting offspring and then repeating the process until he had developed one clover variety that met all of the Institute’s goals for whitetail food plots. At the time, Advantage was the only clover ever developed for whitetail deer. That changed several years ago when Insight, a second, highly drought-resistant clover genetically developed by Dr. Johnson for deer, was added to the Imperial Whitetail Clover blend.
The success of Imperial Clover and other Whitetail Institute products is largely due to the exceptional diligence with which the Institute conducts its plant breeding, research and development. With the passing of Dr. Johnson in 2006, the Institute began an intensive search for the best candidate to take up the reins as Director of Forage Research. The pool of candidates was narrowed to a short list of the top scientists in North America, and after an intensive process, one scientist’s name stood at the top of the list, Dr. Wayne Hanna.
To say that Dr. Hanna’s resume is impressive would be a gross understatement. Without question, he is a world-renowned expert in agronomy and plant genetics. In 1990, he was named Outstanding Scientist of the year by the United States Department of Agriculture, and in 2003 he was named Inventor of the Year by the University of Georgia Research Foundation. In 2006, Dr. Hanna was inducted into the United States Department of Agriculture – Agriculture Research Service Hall of Fame.
Dr. Hanna is a Fellow and past board member of both the American Society of Agronomy and the Crop Science Society of America, and he has served as Associate Editor for both Crop Science and Journal of Heredity. Dr. Hanna is an active participant in numerous professional societies, including the American Genetics Association, American Forage and Grassland Council, and a long list of other organizations of national and international scope. The success of Dr. Hanna’s research and his efforts to apply it around the world have brought international acclaim to Dr. Hanna, the University of Georgia and the United States Department of Agriculture.
As a plant breeder, Dr. Hanna has developed and released over 46 parental lines, inbreds, improved germplasm and/or cultivars, and he is internationally recognized for his research of a natural form of clonal reproduction through seed. Widely recognized as a foremost authority on genetics, cytogenetics and breeding of pearl millet, Dr. Hanna’s research concerning pearl millets has played a major role in producing the first commercial pearl millet hybrids released in the U.S. These hybrids have had a major impact in a broad range of industries, including beef, dairy, poultry and wildlife.
Another especially significant area of Dr. Hanna’s career is in the development of environmentally friendly turfgrasses that have been readily accepted and are in use in the U.S. and around the world. These turfgrasses have become standards in the industry, their impact has been huge in the U.S., and in the Tropics they have revolutionized the beef and dairy industries.
Dr. Hanna is quick to give credit to others who have had a major impact in his career. These include his high-school agriculture teacher, Mr. Leon Kainer, and Dr. Keith Schertz, a USDA-ARS geneticist at Texas A&M under whose tutelage Wayne pursued his Masters degree and PhD. It was Mr. Kainer’s influence that initially set Wayne on his course toward agronomy. Wayne says, “If it hadn’t been for Dr. Kainer, I would not in a position to work with the Whitetail Institute today.” Of his post-graduate work, Wayne recalls, “Research was serious business to Dr. Shertz, and it had to be done right. He taught me the system that I follow to this very day – plan, work the plan, and then complete the scientific process.”
After earning his PhD, Dr. Hanna had no shortage of employment opportunities, ranging from Oregon and California to Mississippi and Florida. He had hoped for employment with the USDA-ARS (United States Department of Agriculture - Agriculture Research Service) in Tifton, Georgia, but when no opening appeared there he accepted a position as a white clover breeder for the University of Florida. Shortly thereafter, though, he was surprised by an offer from the USDA-ARS in Tifton to fill a position being vacated by Dr. Jerrell Powell, who had accepted new employment in Washington, DC. “The call was quite a surprise,” says Wayne. “I had the utmost respect for Dr. Powell, and I knew he loved his position at Tifton.”
At Tifton, Wayne worked as a USDA-ARS research geneticist and part-time professor with the University of Georgia, and he remained in that capacity until his retirement in 2003. He remembers those years fondly. “My career with the Agricultural Research Service was challenging, productive and rewarding. It was pure joy. Plus, I had the opportunity to work with over 160 scientists around the world during my career. Our research on forages, turf grasses and pearl millet allowed me to travel to over 35 countries, which proved extremely valuable in my continuous efforts to become a progressively better scientist.” Dr. Hanna has served as an invited consultant to 30 countries and given over 80 invited national and international presentations. He is the author or co-author of over 565 journal papers, book chapters, proceedings, abstracts and popular articles.
All of us at the Whitetail Institute have enjoyed getting to know Dr. Hanna, or “Dr. Wayne” as he is quickly becoming known at the Institute, and we can already tell that the association will be a very good fit. Certainly we have the utmost respect for what he brings to our company from a professional standpoint. But, perhaps it is also that in some ways Wayne reminds us of Dr. Wiley Johnson, his predecessor as the Whitetail Institute’s Director of Forage research.
I first met Wayne a year or so before he joined the Institute. Even then, he reminded me in many ways of “Doc Johnson.” Wayne is highly professional, but in a strong, gentlemanly way; I have yet to see him present anything other than a smile, a firm handshake accompanied by a steady eye and a kind word for everyone he greets. Wayne also freely shares his abundant knowledge without considering it proprietary, a characteristic for which I also admired Doc.
Also like his predecessor, Wayne is a man of faith, which he attributes to a life-altering event that occurred in July, 1974. “That’s when I heard Jerry Clower say something that changed my life and keeps changing it even today. He said that when he wakes up in the morning and looks in the mirror, he says, ‘Lord, I am going to work for You today; here I am. Use me.’ I suddenly realized that while I had been doing all the right things, I had been doing them for all the wrong reasons. Since that day, He has been my boss. He’s the one thing in this world that doesn’t change over time.”
The professional respect between Doc Johnson and Dr. Wayne was mutual. Dr. Johnson knew Dr. Hanna and held him in high regard, both personally and professionally. Likewise, Wayne is aware of the contributions of his predecessor.
“I am beginning the newest chapter in my life – working with the Whitetail Institute of North America to develop the best possible forages for wildlife. As I start my journey here, I remain aware that I follow in the footsteps of Dr. Wiley Johnson, a highly regarded legume breeder who developed such highly respected varieties as Advantage and Insight, the core perennial clovers in several Whitetail Institute forage blends. Dr. Johnson’s are big shoes to fill. He set high standards and then lived up to them. But, I like a challenge, and I will do my best to continue to meet the high standards set by Dr. Johnson.”