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William "Bill" D. Hagenstein was born in Seattle on March 8, 1915, to Charles William and Janet May (Finigan) Hagenstein. Throughout his life, Hagenstein thought of himself primarily as a forester, and was a strong advocate for regional and national forestry policies that protected forests and ensured their continued productivity.

As a teenager, Hagenstein worked every summer in logging camps. Following his graduation from Ballard High School, he secured his first foreman's job, then later worked on major forest fires in Idaho in the early 1930s. He earned his B.S. in Forestry in 1938 from the University of Washington, and his master's degree from the School of Forestry at Duke University in 1941. Hagenstein then worked for the West Coast Lumbermen's Association as the forester for Western Washington. He also participated in the Keep Washington Green and Keep Oregon Green associations.

In 1943, during WWII, Hagenstein went to the South and Central Pacific, where he served as the chief engineer of military lumbering and built a saw mill to support the war effort. He went to Costa Rica two years later to help establish a cinchona (quinine) plantation that was used to grow the bark necessary for producing the drug that was used to treat malaria. Hagenstein returned to the West Coast Lumbermen's Association in 1949, when he began work with the Industrial Forestry Association. Throughout his career, Hagenstein provided expert testimony to the Oregon and Washington legistlatures on 250 occasions, and spoke publicly about sound forestry practices 770 times.

Hagenstein died of natural causes on September 4, 2014.