Board of Directors
The Board of Directors of MGP Ingredients, Inc., is comprised of nine highly experienced individuals who have dedicated themselves to the Company’s success. The Board is responsible for providing oversight of the Company’s business management and affairs. Directors are required to act in the best interest of the company and its stockholder. The Board has been remains actively engaged in fulfilling these duties.
The Board Chairman is a non-management, independent Board member. Each Director, as well as all officers and employees, must comply with the Company’s Code of Conduct, which is posted in the Investor section of this website under Corporate Governance. Directors regularly attend meetings of the Board and the committees of which they are members. These committees regularly conduct executive sessions without management present.
On an annual basis, the Board’s Human Resources and Compensation Committee reviews succession planning. The review includes discussion of the principles for determining the succession of the Chief Executive Officer and other members of the Company’s senior executive team. Furthermore, Directors annually evaluate the performance of the Board and assess the skills of each member.
MGP Ingredients and its stockholder continue to benefit from an active and experienced Audit Committee, which provides oversight for the Company’s financial reporting, internal controls and the external audit. In addition, each committee annually evaluates its charter, responsibilities and performance in light of regulatory requirements and best practices.
John R. Speirs, Board Chairman
Mr. Speirs has been a director since 2004 and currently serves as Board Chairman. His current term expires in October 2013. He serves as lead director and was named Chairman of the Board upon the retirement of Ladd Seaberg from Board service on August 27, 2009. He is the Chairman and co-founder of Stellus Consulting, a Minneapolis, Minnesota-based strategy consulting firm formed in 2001 that specializes in business strategy, strategic visioning, merger and acquisition support and branding...
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Cloud L. Cray Jr.
Mr. Cray has been a director since 1957. His current term expires in October 2013. He served as Chairman of the Board from 1980 until 2006 and as Chief Executive Officer from 1980 to September, 1988, and has been an officer or director of the Company for more than 50 years. He is the father of Karen Seaberg.
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Michael Braude
Mr. Braude has been a director since 1991. His current term expires in 2012. He is a member of the Nominating and Governance Committee, the Audit Committee and the Human Resources and Compensation Committee. From November, 2000 until March 2004, he was Executive Vice President of Country Club Bank, Kansas City, Missouri. Previously, from 1984 until his retirement in November, 2000, he was the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Kansas City Board of Trade, a commodity futures...
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Daryl R. Schaller, Ph.D.
Dr. Schaller has been a director since October, 1997. His current term expires in 2012. He is Chairman of the Human Resources and Compensation Committee and a member of the Audit Committee and Nominating and Governance Committee. He currently provides, and from 1996 through November 2001 provided, consulting services through his consulting firm, Schaller Consulting. He was Vice President of Research and Development of International Multifoods Corp., of Minneapolis, Minnesota, from November...
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Linda E. Miller
Ms. Miller has been a director since June 2000. Her current term expires in 2012. She is the Chairwoman of the Nominating and Governance Committee and a member of the Audit Committee and the Human Resources and Compensation Committee. She is an independent marketing consultant and has been a member of the Engineering Management Graduate Faculty at the University of Kansas since 1989. She was previously employed by Dupont, Baxter Healthcare and the American Business Women's Association,...
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John E. Byom
Mr. Byom has been a director since 2004. His current term expires in October 2013. He is Chairman of the Audit Committee and a member of the Human Resources and Compensation Committee and the Nominating and Governance Committee. Since October 2007, Mr. Byom has been an owner and the CEO of Classic Provisions, Inc., a specialty foods distribution company based in Plymouth, Minnesota. He is the former Chief Financial Officer of International Multifoods Corporation. He left that company in...
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J. Gary Gradinger
Mr. Gradinger has been a director since June 2005. His current term expires in 2014. He is a member of the Audit Committee, the Human Resources and Compensation Committee and the Nominating and Governance Committee. Since 1983, he has served as the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Golden Star, Inc., a privately owned company which is engaged in the production of textile cleaning, communication and safety products. He also serves as a director of Buffalo Funds, Buffalo Large Cap...
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Karen Seaberg
Mrs. Seaberg has been a director since August 2009. Her current term expires in 2014. She has been an executive travel agent with the Atchison Travel Center for the past 20 years and is co-owner of a local Long John Silver's franchise in Atchison, Kansas. Mrs. Seaberg is active in civic affairs at the local and national levels including the 2004-06 Lewis & Clark national Bicentennial Commemoration, the Atchison Chamber of Commerce and the Atchison River Front/Downtown Development. She...
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Tim Newkirk, President & Chief Executive Officer
Tim Newkirk has served as President of MGP since October 2006 and as Chief Executive Officer since March 2008. He also previously served as Chief Operating Officer from March 2006 to March 2008. He began his career with MGP in 1991, serving initially as a Distillery Shift Manager and later as a Process Engineer, Project Engineer and Quality Control Manager at the Company’s Atchison plant. He was promoted to Manager of the Company’s former Pekin, Illinois, plant in...
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