John Bekkers of Atlanta has been elected president and chief executive officer of Gold Kist Inc. by the board of directors of the nation’s second largest and only farmer-owned chicken processor. He succeeds Gaylord O. Coan, who retired July 6 as chief executive officer and chairman of the management executive committee after 42 years with Gold Kist.
Bekkers, 56, had been president and chief operating officer since 1995. In his 16-year career with Gold Kist, he served as director of management systems for its poultry business and for seven years managed its largest poultry production and processing operations at Boaz and Guntersville, AL. Prior to joining Gold Kist, he was a management consultant for 12 years, with Gold Kist as one of his clients, and he and his wife, Mary, also owned a laying hen and livestock farm at Piedmont, AL.
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Bekkers is the immediate past chairman of the board of the National Chicken Council in Washington, a director of Farm Credit Leasing in Minneapolis and the Farmers and Merchants Bank in Piedmont, Alabama, and a member of the advisory board of Rabobank in Utrecht, Holland.
A native of Arnhem, Holland, Bekkers earned a business degree before immigrating to California in 1962. He served in Vietnam during two years of active duty with the U. S. Army and became a U.S. citizen in 1983. He attended Harbor Junior College at San Pedro, CA, completed the Duke University advanced management program and has participated in four Harvard University agribusiness management seminars.
Gold Kist Inc. is a $1.7 billion sales cooperative whose members in Georgia, Alabama, Florida and North and South Carolina produce approximately 14.5 million chickens per week. It also has interests in peanut and pecan processing and hog production. Headquartered in Atlanta, Gold Kist employs approximately 18,000 people and serves customers throughout the U.S. and in many foreign countries.
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