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 1997.
In the spring of 2000, Mr. Newkirk accepted the position of Vice President of Operations for the former High Plains Corporation, an ethanol production company located in Wichita, Kansas. He became Vice President of Global Operations for Abengoa Bioenergy S.L. following that company’s acquisition of High Plains in January 2002. He was promoted to Chief Operating Officer of Abengoa Bioenergy Corporation in August, 2003 and held that position until his return to MGP as Director of Operations in May 2005.
Mr. Newkirk has served on the Company’s Board of Directors since 2008. He also serves as Chairman of the U.S.D. 409 Board of Education in Atchison and is involved in a number of other community and service organizations. A native of Pittsburg, Kansas, Mr. Newkirk spent most of his youth in Atchison and graduated from Atchison High School in 1986. He received a bachelor of science degree in engineering management from the University of Missouri-Rolla in 1991 and earned a master’s degree in business administration at the Olin School of Business at Washington University, St. Louis, in February 2006.