Ken Sandusky was born into a timber family and raised in and around Klamath Falls, Oregon. He is an enrolled member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma but spent all his life in the Modoc Homelands in Southern Oregon and Northern California. Attending the oldest grade school in Oregon, he learned everything he could about the Modocs in Oklahoma, feeling a sense of connection as a member of a forcefully removed Oklahoma Tribe. The Modoc Nation recruited him into their service after working with him as the Public Affairs Staff Officer and Tribal Liaison on the Modoc National Forest. He has also been a wildland firefighter, goat rancher, sawyer, and resort guest services manager. He is now the Modoc Nation Homelands Director, managing ~4,000 acres of sage-steppe ranchlands, facilitating government-to-government Consultation, participating in innovative collaborative partnerships, and generally working to restore ecologic and economic resilience across the Modoc Homelands.
