Tyson Foods names new CEO, COO

The board of Springdale-based Tyson Foods Inc. has named Donnie Smith the new CEO and Jim Lochner the new chief operating officer, according to a statement the company issued Thursday (Nov. 19) morning.

The promotions are effective immediately.

Smith was serving as senior group vice president of Poultry and Prepared Foods, and Lochner was employed as senior group vice president of Fresh Meats. The company said their successors will be named within two weeks.

Smith and Lochner will be under immediate pressure to keep the company’s financials above water. For the first nine fiscal months of 2009, the company posted a loss of $82 million, compared to a $38 million net income for the same period of the previous year. The company is expected to report fourth quarter and full year earnings on Monday (Nov. 23). The consensus estimate of analysts is for per share quarterly earnings of 26 cents, which would be a marked improvement over the 14 cents per share in the same quarter of 2008.

"The Tyson Board and the Tyson family congratulate Donnie Smith and Jim Lochner and wish them the best for the future success of our company," John Tyson, Tyson Foods board chairman, said in a statement. "We appreciate Leland Tollett stepping into the CEO role earlier in the year and working so hard to help turn the company around. Significant progress has been made. I have worked with both Donnie and Jim for a number of years and am convinced that they are the right leadership team for this next phase in the evolution of our company. Their extensive experience inside the company has fully prepared them to continue the progress we have made in the last year."

Tollett, a former chairman and CEO of Tyson Foods and close associate of majority Tyson shareholder Don Tyson, replaced Dick Bond as president and CEO of Tyson Foods, in early January. The January move was unexpected, with Bond being completely separated from the company. In a November 2008 report from the Associated Press, Don Tyson acknowledged that he and his “lieutenants” Tollett and Buddy Wray were working with the company during a financially difficult time of high feed, fuel and other input costs.

Smith, 50, is also a long-time associate of Don Tyson. He joined Tyson Foods in 1980 after graduating from the University of Tennessee. After seven years experience in various live poultry production jobs, he moved to the corporate headquarters in Springdale to join the Tyson commodities purchasing group. He’s held several positions since that move, including jobs in purchasing, food safety and quality assurance, manufacturing services and information systems, according to the company statement.

Lochner, 57, joined IBP — later purchased by Tyson in 2001 — in 1983 as director of research. In 2000, he was promoted to president and CEO of IBP. After Tyson Foods acquired IBP in 2001, he was named group vice president of Tyson Fresh Meats, and in 2007 was named senior group vice president of Fresh Meats in 2007.