King Ranch Institute -- Creating Executive Ranchers

“Every manager of the place, and there haven’t been many,” says Paul Genho, vice president of King Ranch, “has been committed to improvement through research. Captain King, Robert Justis Kleberg, Bob and Tio Kleberg ,” have each made a contribution to an area of the industry in which they saw a lack.

It appears Genho’s immediate contribution will be education. A foot-thick stack of papers sits on the table at Genho’s elbow in his ranch office. Each neatly clipped bundle of papers is a submission for the 150th anniversary book, Ranch Management: Integrating Cattle, Wildlife and Range in an Economically Viable Program.

When King Ranch celebrated its 125th anniversary, a management reference book was published to mark the occasion. The family wished to continue the tradition at this anniversary. This book along with the symposium, chaired by Genho and Kleberg family member Cina Alexander Forgason, will be a part of the anniversary activities, which also include a cattle and horse sale, chaired by Tio Kleberg and Scott Moore; a social event at the King Ranch main house; and a fundraiser for the newly formed King Ranch Institute at Texas A&M University, Kingsville. 

“Do some good thing”

“The family insisted that we do some good thing out of this,” Genho says of the 150th celebrations. That “good thing” will be the King Ranch Institute at Texas A&M University, Kingsville.

Genho explains a need exists at a certain level in the ranching industry for managers who are already well-rounded in business management, rather than requiring extensive on-the-job training.

His own path to his executive position at Deseret Land and Cattle, and frequent phone calls from landowners looking for managers, have convinced Genho of the need for an executive ranch management training program.

            Genho came out of college with a bachelors degree and began managing a 17,000-acre ranch in Utah. Working full-time, Genho also studied for his masters degree. “I did that for eight or nine years and then got my Ph.D. and went back to Deseret as a cattle manager.”

Armed with a doctorate, it probably was a bit of a shock to discover he needed to be a generalist in the work world of Deseret,  rather than maintaining the narrow focus his doctorate work had required.

“I worked four or five years as cattle manager and then became general manager in Florida. I took over the north Texas and Oklahoma operations. I was (at Deseret) 17 years. By the time I left, I had the Southeast in the Deseret system.” In 1998 Genho was hired by Jack Hunt, CEO of King Ranch, Inc., to serve as vice president of the ranching operations.

“We have crafted, with Texas A&M, the King Ranch Institute of Ranch Management. It is a graduate program. Students will go through a very intensive 24-month program,” which will require students to devote summers and semesters to study.

Working with existing faculty and courses within the Texas A&M system, Institute students will be bolstered in areas of academic and professional development weakness.

“We’ve worked it out with the MBA program that they can take three or four MBA classes such as managerial accounting, finance accounting, human relations and human management classes. They will have all systems classes.

            “If they are weak in wildlife they will be over at Caesar Kleberg Wildlife Research Institute (Kingsville) taking wildlife classes. If they are weak in range, they’ll be working with A&M in range.

“It’s not a research degree. It’s a case study degree,” Genho explains. “They might spend one summer working here with the cowboys, the accounting people, the managerial people and do an analysis of grazing systems and their impact on cattle, wildlife and range.”

The second summer, Genho suggests, could send the student to a ranch outside of Texas or outside the United States to continue their case study work.

Three students will be admitted each year of the two-year program for a maximum of six students at a time. “It will be a small program,” Genho grants and asks, “but how many of these people do we really need in the world?”

            When asked if potential salaries for these highly-trained students will be equal to their depth of education, Genho answers, “I’m sure there will be good salaries. Will they be equivalent to an MBA-from-Harvard salary? Probably not. But will they be better than the $24,000 the kid earns coming out of A&M with an animal science degree? Yes.”

Approved by the Texas A&M Board of Regents and endorsed by the governor, the family is involved in raising $10 million to endow the Institute. Nearly half that amount has been raised and the search is on for a director, the support staff, and to acquire equipment and funds for assistantships for the students.

Producer input plays a major role in the Institute. Bob McCan, president of TSCRA and a rancher in Victoria, is on the advisory board, along with Gus Canalas and Lynn Drawe, South Texas ranchers.

“Whoever is vice president of King Ranch running operations will be the vice chair (of the advisory board) and that’s me,” Genho explains. Jamey Clement, a member of the King Ranch family, serves as chair of the advisory group and another family member, Cina Forgason, serves on the group as a representative of the Bob Kleberg Foundation.

Students are expected to begin coursework at the Kingsville campus in the fall of 2004.