History
In 1902, George A. Archer and John W. Daniels began a linseed crushing business. In 1923, Archer-Daniels Linseed Company acquired Midland Linseed Products Company, and the Archer Daniels Midland Company was formed. Every decade since its corporate inception, ADM has added at least one major profit source to its agribusiness: milling, processing, specialty food ingredients, cocoa, nutrition, and more.
In 1971 Dwayne Andreas became Chief Executive Officer of ADM, and is credited with transforming the firm into an industrial powerhouse. Andreas remained CEO until 1997. He was one of the most prominent political campaign donors in the United States, having contributed millions of dollars to Democratic and Republican candidates alike.
In September 1999, executive Marty Andreas announced, under pressure from the European agricultural industry, they were going to separate crops into genetically modified and non-genetically modified groups to give their customers a choice. Previously the company had not disclosed their crop sources.
In 2001, Paul B. Mulhollem became the President of ADM. The Archer Daniels Midland Company made history by becoming the first U.S. company to sign a contract with Cuba since the embargo against Cuba was imposed October 1960.
In May 2006, Patricia A. Woertz became CEO. Formerly of Chevron, she is expected to focus on developing ethanol and biofuels. In February 2007 Ms. Woertz was elected Chairman of the Board at ADM.
On 22 August 2011, Archer Daniels Midland announced that the soybean processing facility in Galesburg, Illinois was closing immediately, and its operations would be transferred to other ADM oilseeds facilities. The facility has been idle since April 2011. Some of the 31 employees will be offered the opportunity to transfer to other ADM facilities.
Read more about this topic: Archer Daniels Midland
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“We are told that men protect us; that they are generous, even chivalric in their protection. Gentlemen, if your protectors were women, and they took all your property and your children, and paid you half as much for your work, though as well or better done than your own, would you think much of the chivalry which permitted you to sit in street-cars and picked up your pocket- handkerchief?”
—Mary B. Clay, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 3, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)
“It’s nice to be a part of history but people should get it right. I may not be perfect, but I’m bloody close.”
—John Lydon (formerly Johnny Rotten)
“All history attests that man has subjected woman to his will, used her as a means to promote his selfish gratification, to minister to his sensual pleasures, to be instrumental in promoting his comfort; but never has he desired to elevate her to that rank she was created to fill. He has done all he could to debase and enslave her mind; and now he looks triumphantly on the ruin he has wrought, and say, the being he has thus deeply injured is his inferior.”
—Sarah M. Grimke (1792–1873)