Meat&Poultry - August 2012 - 30

TURNING TO TURKEY

BeBrenneman had already been filling in as interim Butterball president and CEO. Welcoming Brenneman to the helm of the huge turkey producer was Walter Pelletier, president of Maxwell Farms LLC, which shares equal ownership of Butterball with Seaboard Corp. Brenneman had worked at Seaboard since 1989 and had been president and CEO from 2001 until August 2011. In his comments to Brenneman in September of last year, Pelletier said, “Our No. 1 priority is to produce the highest quality of healthy, wholesome turkey products for consumers. Rod will provide instrumental strategic corporate insight to strengthen Butterball’s business operations, while helping the company maintain its commitment to its core goals.” of Butterball’s business strategy and operations. Giving him great marks is Steve Bresky, president and CEO at Seaboard Corp., who says Brenneman has done exceptionally well at developing Seaboard Foods into the business it is today, and that he would be bringing his proven management skills and business expertise to Butterball, which was Seaboard’s most-recent acquisition. While at Seaboard, he served the company in various financial management capacities, including director of tax and business development. He also became involved in working on many of the company’s joint ventures and acquisitions. In 1994, Brenneman was named vice president of fi nance and administration at Seaboard Foods, and played a major role in building up the company from its startup to being one of the major hog-production and pork-processing businesses in the US. Two years later, he was named senior vice president for live production, in charge of all live production The company accounts for 20 percent of turkey production in the US, employs 5,000 people in five plants and corporate offices, and includes the 675,000-sq.-ft. plant in Mt. Olive, NC, the world’s largest turkey facility. for the company. Brenneman serves on a number of boards as a director, including the American Meat Institute, where he is a member of AMI’s executive committee. He has also been chairman of the trade association. When he graduated from college, he worked for Arthur Andersen, but the vast majority of his career has been spent with Seaboard. “I’ve been fortunate in my career to have been exposed to numerous businesses within the Seaboard

family during my time with the company,” he says. Did Brenneman suspect he might be named president of the country’s biggest turkey producer? A modest man despite his position in the industry, he says, No. “As a part of my role on Butterball’s board of directors, I was asked to serve alongside another board member as the interim CEO while we performed a nationwide search for a replacement. I had no expectation of becoming Butterball’s new CEO,” he says. “However, after spending some time as interim CEO and learning more about the business and the people, the Butterball board and I came to a mutual agreement that I would be a good fit.” Butterball’s joint ownership by Seaboard Corp. and Maxwell Farms provide several benefits to Butterball, from the vantage point of a twopronged ownership approach. In his interview with Meat&Poultry, Brenneman explains t he details of t he cor por ate ow ner sh ip. “First, bot h owners are aligned in corporate positioning, and see eye-to-eye on company direction, which allows our management teams to lead w it hout wor r ying about conf licting ownership interests,” he says. “Second, each owner is committed to providing resources and supporting the business to insure Butterball remains the No. 1 brand in the turkey business. Finally, both owners have a long-term approach to business, which lends itself to longterm strategic decisions.”

“My strengths are in building a strong cohesive team, and in setting and communicating a strategy for the organization.”

Starting strong
In the opinion of those in the industry who know Brenneman from his time at Seaboard and now at Butterball, he is strengthening the company already. He is overseeing all aspects

Sharing his strengths
The Butterball executive is happy to talk about his upside as a business leader, both when he was CEO at

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Meat&Poultry - August 2012

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