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Champions

Business, sports excellence defines Kain’s family

These days Kain and his wife enjoy a picture-perfect life in southern California.tony florez photography

Bob Kain’s family is overflowing with business success.

His youngest son, Tucker, is a longtime Los Angeles Dodgers exec who is a two-time winner of SBJ’s Forty Under 40 award. Earlier this year, he was promoted to president of Dodgers Business Enterprise and managing director of Guggenheim Baseball Management.

Kain’s daughter-in-law, Brooke, is a rising star in the music industry and currently is chief digital officer of AEG Presents. Billboard named her to its Digital Power Players list in 2017 and 2018, and last year Ad Age listed her among its “Women to Watch.”

Kain’s wife, Rosalynn Sumners, is a former world champion figure skater (see story).

“While we are all in the sports and entertainment business, Will is saving the world,” Kain says of his oldest son, Will, Brooke’s husband who is founder and CEO of Pantheon Energy, which captures unused energy from solar panels and windmills. Prior to that, he was an executive with NanoH20, a water desalination company.

Why so much success in one family? Will pinpoints his father teaching them the value of hard work. 

“If you respect hard work and are willing to put yourself into a working mindset, then you have a chance of achieving the things you want to achieve,” he said.

Tucker added that his father taught them personal responsibility. “In our house, the saying was, ‘Bad news travels fast,’” he said. “We are clear about it. We own it. We tell people what’s going on and don’t sugarcoat it necessarily.”

Brooke, meanwhile, frequently calls on her father-in-law for advice on business deals. “He is my go-to for advice,” she said.

Kain the patriarch, though, wasn’t born to be in sports business — or business in general, really. He came from a family of doctors — his father, Dr. Gene Kain, was a surgeon, and his uncle and grandfather were doctors, too. Initially, his father was not happy with his career choice, but it all worked out in the end.

“I got into the tennis business and I end up at IMG and I got to know Arnold Palmer, and my dad’s lifelong sports hero was Arnold Palmer,” Kain said. “So once I told him I was hanging out with Arnold Palmer, he told all of his buddies, and any upset-ness was long gone after that.”

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