Ken Rogers has lived in Auburn since graduating from high school. Following two years in the US Army and gradate school, he began working as a research agronomist for the USDA-Agriculture Research Service identifying toxins produced by soil borne peanut pathogens and developing peanut breeding lines with resistance to these pathogens. After about 7 years, he changed careers. He began working for the USDA-Natural Resources Conservation Services as the State Resource Conservationist Agronomist. He retired in 2004 as the State Resource Conservation. Since retirement he continues to do contract work for Validus LLC, an environmental management company, providing environmental assessments and comprehensive nutrient management planning services to farmers with animal feeding operations (dairies, hog farms, chicken farms and cattle ranches).

Ken and his wife, Susan met in Auburn and have been married for 35 years. Susan is a professor at Tuskegee University where she teaches in the Occupational Therapy Department. They have two sons and one daughter. Their oldest son, David, is a physian, who is at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. Ben, their youngest son, lives in Millbrook, AL and teaches biology at Auburn University in Montgomery. He and his wife have two children, (GRANDCHILDREN). Mary, their daughter, lives in Japan where her husband, Andrew, is in the Navy.

Ken enjoys working for Validus since he can work at his discretion and it has involved traveling from the wheat fields of Western Washington to the Everglades of Florida and most states in between, and working with some very interesting people.

He makes a vegetable garden, keeps a small flock of Silver Sebright chickens, and several hives of bees for pollination purposes. Yes, just down the street from Auburn University President’s home, is a flock of chickens. Also, plant collecting is an enjoyable pastime of his. Not only does he collect native plant specimens for the Auburn University Arboretum and the Auburn Herbium, he maintains a large collection of wildflowers, shrubs and trees on his property. He has a large collection of native azaleas and rhododendrons which he raised from seed, over 100 different cultivars of Japanese maples which he grafted, and close to 800 different cultivars of camellias and evergreen azaleas. His goal is to have at least one of all the native tree species that grow in Alabama growing in his woods.

He has propagated most of the plants in his collections. He often conducts grafting workshops for various gardening groups in the East Alabama area.