WASHINGTON — The National Chicken Council has installed the four officers that will guide the organization through 2023. The installation took place at NCC’s 67th Annual Conference in Washington, D.C. Kevin Garland, CEO of Mountaire Farms, will serve as 2022-2023 chairman.
Mountaire has been in the Cameron family for more than 100 years. Garland succeeded his father-in-law, Ronnie Cameron, as CEO of Mountaire. Garland has spent the entirety of his career building and leading industrial businesses. Prior to Mountaire, he spent more than 25 years in private equity as a Managing Partner at The Sterling Group in Houston and at Enron Corp. He began his career in investment banking at Stephens Inc.
Garland received a B.A. from Rhodes College and an M.B.A. with honors from Vanderbilt University. He and Sherrill Garland have been married since 1990 and they have three children. The Garlands are personally committed to supporting faith-based organizations that help poor and disadvantaged children.
Perdue Farms’ CEO Randy Day will serve as NCC vice chairman.
Day leads the company’s senior leadership team, which includes Perdue Foods, Perdue AgriBusiness, and Perdue Farms corporate functions. He was named CEO in March of 2017, after serving as chief operating officer. Day began his professional career with Perdue Farms in 1980, holding various positions of increasing responsibility in the company’s two operating divisions, Perdue Foods and Perdue AgriBusiness.
He received his bachelor of science degree in biology from Western Maryland College, earned a master’s degree in poultry nutrition from the University of Maryland-College Park, and completed the Advanced Management Program at the Harvard Business School. Day and his wife Debbie reside in Salisbury, Md. They have three children and six grandchildren.
New to the 2022-2023 officer corps is Bill Griffith, chief operations officer at Peco Foods, who will serve as NCC secretary-treasurer.
Griffith has more than 25 years of management experience in the food industry and is known for his strong reputation for innovation, sustainability and quality. Prior to joining the Peco, he worked for Keystone Foods U.S. where he served as president from 2016-2019 and also held roles of vice presisent of Global Safety and Quality Assurance, and vice president of Safety and Quality Assurance. In addition to nine years with Keystone, Griffith had a successful tenure at Perdue Foods, overseeing food safety, quality and regulatory compliance. Preceding his time at Perdue, he was a microbiologist at Tyson Foods where he established a global reputation as an innovator in food safety technology.
He holds two degrees from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University: a B.S. in biology and a B.A. in chemistry. Griffith resides in Tuscaloosa, Ala., with his wife Sonja. They have two children, Shrader and Will.
In addition to the three new officers, Mike Brown was elected to a 12th term as president of NCC.
“This past year was riddled with challenges for our industry — COVID-19, hurricanes, record inflation, soaring input costs, and new government regulations,” Brown said. “2023 will present new challenges, but also opportunities. With the depth of experience brought forth by this new slate of leadership, I fully expect us to continue to rise up to them all.”
