David Huff, professor of turfgrass breeding and genetics at Penn State, recently earned the Research Innovator Award through the College of Agricultural Sciences for the research and entrepreneurial leadership that led to the founding of his startup, PennPoa.
PennPoa aims to transform the turfgrass industry through the commercialization of highly cultivated Poa annua, or annual bluegrass, seed varieties for the golf course industry.
To launch his turfgrass startup, Huff utilized Penn State entrepreneurial resources including the Penn State Small Business Development Center (SBDC), Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Central & Northern Pennsylvania and the Office of Technology Transfer.
When Huff came to Penn State in 1994, his goal was to breed and improve varieties of Poa annua for the golf course industry. This strain has desirable traits, Huff said, such as high shoot density and dwarfism, which allows the grass to tolerate extremely low mowing heights - an important characteristic for golf course turfgrass, where mowing heights can be less than one-tenth of an inch.
Huff said he quickly realized there was no commercially available seed for this top-quality grass, forcing golf courses to either use lower-quality grass species or rely on bluegrass that naturally emerges as a weed. However, when Poa annua establishes itself as a weed, it can take 50 to 100 years of golf course maintenance for it to naturally evolve into the highly sought-after strain, according to Huff.
"There was no one out there helping the golf industry with this problem, and so I decided it would be a good project to work on," Huff said. "I collected seeds from a lot of places across the U.S. and Europe, bred them, and after 13 years I had a top 10 - they were just beautiful grasses."
However, when Huff moved into the seed production process with those 10 strains, he lost the dwarfism trait that made the grasses so valuable. The plants reverted to weedy grasses, prompting another 13 years of research and the additional support of three graduate students to understand why this was happening and how to ensure the seeds retained their dwarf perennial traits.
After a total of 26 years of research, Huff's new seeds were finally ready for beta testing.
"I ran those beta tests on five golf courses, covering the east coast, west coast and the northern and southern United States regions, and everything looked good. So, in the meantime, that's when I started the company," Huff said. "I had no idea I'd be doing a startup. When I first started, I thought this grass was going to behave like all grasses and that I would be able to license it to a seed company."
Huff said he was already familiar with the licensing process at Penn State, as he breeds other grass varieties that are released to seed production companies. However, because of the complex and novel seed production technology he and his team developed to maintain Poa annua's favorable traits, he realized he could not simply hand off the process to a seed company.
The Penn State Office of Technology Transfer (OTT) suggested that he launch a startup.
"To be honest, when OTT suggested launching a startup, I thought, 'I can't do that, I'm faculty, I'd be using the product I'm researching, it's a conflict of interest,'" Huff said. "And they said Penn State has a support system in place to help manage that for you."
OTT connected Huff to the Office for Research Protections, where a team helped Huff navigate the research commercialization process.
He later entered the Ben Franklin Technology Partners Big Idea Contest, where he won the People's Choice Award. Through that experience, Huff learned more about the entrepreneurial ecosystem at Penn State and in State College, and he began attending entrepreneurial events, meetups and competitions hosted by Ben Franklin, the Penn State SBDC and other local community organizations.
At one of these events, Huff met Martin Brill, a business consultant and coordinator for the Pennsylvania SBDC Agriculture Center of Excellence, who became a long-term mentor.
"Martin and everyone else that I've met has just been very encouraging, and that was very important to me," Huff said. "Starting a new company like this was very scary - I wasn't planning on it, and I haven't been trained for it. But Martin, Ben Franklin, OTT, the individuals in the Office for Research Protections, they all encouraged me, and that's what propelled me forward. I followed their advice, and I never really hit a roadblock. I hit a lot of hurdles, but everyone helped me get over those. Before I knew it, I had a license agreement, I had a formal company and we started sales."
Huff said 2025 marked his first year of sales, and he sold out of both his 2024 and 2025 crops. He already has received orders for 2026 and 2027.He added that the Penn State College of Agricultural Sciences has also been critical to his startup success. Huff received funding through the College's Research Applications for INnovation (RAIN) grants program and has been able to lease college-owned land to support seed production.
"One of the other things that helped me was that, at all these various workshops and seminars provided by the SBDC, there were all sorts of other folks just like me - people with ideas who live in this area who were starting their own businesses," Huff said. "Talking with them helped me, because they are in the same boat I'm in - they don't know what they're doing either, but they're doing it, and you learn as you go."
Most recently, Huff entered the Invent Penn State Startup Leadership Network Board of Advisors program for 2026, which provides Penn State startups with industry-specific advisory boards to guide founders as they enter the market.
"I've just been impressed by the entrepreneurial ecosystem that's here at Penn State, both on and off campus," Huff said. "It has helped give me the confidence to know that I can do this. Everybody has been so helpful and has given me their time and their interest. They really are passionate about helping people, and with that kind of help, you just go forward."
About the Penn State SBDC
Pennsylvania Small Business Development Centers are funded in part through a cooperative agreement with the U.S. Small Business Administration, by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania through the Department of Community & Economic Development, through support from Penn State, and by other sources of state and federal funding. Full disclosures available at https://www.pasbdc.org/funding-sources/.
SBDCs are hosted by leading universities, colleges, state economic development agencies and private partners, and funded in part by the U.S. Congress through a partnership with the U.S. Small Business Administration. There are nearly 1,000 local centers available to provide no-cost business consulting and low-cost training to new and existing businesses. The Penn State SBDC services Centre, Clinton, Lycoming and Mifflin counties in central Pennsylvania.
