Gov. Josh Shapiro appoints two Penn State trustees as terms expire — including Terry Pegula’s
Two people whom Pennsylvania’s governor appointed to Penn State’s board of trustees were confirmed by the state Senate last week.
The Pennsylvania Senate unanimously approved several executive nominations made by Governor Josh Shapiro on Oct. 9, including Suzan T. Collins, of Pittsburgh, and Kenneth C. Kane, of Kane, to the Penn State board of trustees. Their terms will expire July 1, 2027.
Collins will replace Terry Pegula and Kane will replace Abraham Amorós — as both of their terms expired in 2024 and ended when the Senate confirmed the new members, Wyatt DuBois, director of university public relations at Penn State, said in an email on Friday.
Kane had a long career in forestry after graduating from Penn State with a bachelor’s degree in forest products in 1982. In 2013 he formed Generations Forestry from the purchase of Keith Horn Forestry Inc. He previously worked at Keith Horn Forestry for more than 30 years. He’s now a senior advisor at the company. In 2016 he was given the Outstanding Alumni award from the university’s Department of Ecosystem Science and Management.
Collins is the director of Family Office Collins and Ganley, PC. Additional information was not available.
The governor’s office did not respond to an inquiry about the appointments.
DuBois said they’re set to attend and be introduced at the November board meeting.
Pegula and Amorós were both appointed to the board by former Gov. Tom Wolf in October 2018. Pegula is the CEO of the Buffalo Bills, Buffalo Sabres and JKLM Energy, LLC, but is perhaps best known on Penn State’s campus for gifting funds to the university to build the Pegula Ice Arena and endowing scholarships supporting Penn State men’s hockey. Amorós is the director of operations for the PA Municipal League and previously served as the managing director for the City of Reading.
DuBois provided letters from the governor to Pegula and Amorós thanking them for their commitment to public service.
The Penn State board of trustees is the university’s governing body and is made up of 38 people. It meets multiple times a year with in-person and virtual options. There are six seats that the Pennsylvania governor appoints members to.
The board is broken down into nine distinct groups: elected by alumni, appointed by the governor, elected by agricultural societies, elected by the board representing business and industry, at-large trustees, a student trustee, an academic trustee and the immediate past president of the Penn State Alumni Association.
Five members are also ex-officio by right of their office, including Shapiro, Penn State President Neeli Bendapudi, Secretary of Agriculture Russell C. Redding, Secretary of Education Khalid N. Mumin and Secretary of Conservation and Natural Resources Cynthia A. Dunn.
