When he came to Penn State, Masser brought a family legacy that even predates the university’s 1855 founding.

“My family has farmed in this area since 1800,” he says. “In 1959 my father, Sterman Masser, and his brothers rented 100 acres from an uncle. In 1967, he bought the land from my uncle, and they incorporated the business in 1970. I joined the operation in 1976, and my son, David, joined the business in 2000. I have a photo of five generations of Massers together in one picture.”

He originally wanted a Penn State engineering degree so that he could break away from the family’s farming tradition. But when he married his hometown sweetheart, Helen, and started to raise a family, the lure of the farm grew stronger than ever.

“We wanted to raise our children in a rural environment where they could get to know their extended family and develop a strong work ethic,” he says. “So Helen and I decided to join the family business.”

Helen knew the advantages of rural life, having grown up on a potato farm. She was also familiar with the advantages of Penn State: As one of eight children, she admits to being influenced by her five Penn State–graduate siblings. “I applied to other state schools, but my brothers and sisters had already made the transition, so it was easy to go there,” she says. “Plus, I was dating Keith, and that made it easier, too.

Helen came to Penn State planning to become a home economics teacher, but she switched to earn a degree in nutrition and became a practicing dietitian before joining the family business. “I tried to influence my children to consider Penn State, because I learned from my experiences that you may not know at 18 what you’ll want to do for the rest of your life,” she says.

Her efforts paid off readily, she says, for her son, David, a 1998 graduate in Agricultural and Biological Engineering. He’d decided early that he wanted to pursue agriculture, so Penn State was a “no-brainer” choice. He says even though he’d visited other college campuses, a steady diet of football weekends helped him to feel at home at Penn State.

“There’s a lot of heritage there,” he says. “Both of my parents had success stories that we heard while growing up, and I visited campus a lot for football games and Ag Progress Days. I knew that was the right place to go.”

David Masser credits Agricultural Sciences faculty with preparing him to start his career in the corporate world. He cites an internship that he completed with Deere and Company (for which he received an Outstanding Intern Award from the college) as a source of practical training and fond memories.