Meat Industry Hall of Fame Class of 2022 Inductee Roundtable

Dr. Milkowski received a B. S. degree in Chemistry from the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana and his Ph.D. in Biochemistry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He joined Oscar Mayer Foods in 1977 and progressed to become the leader for basic and applied research covering food chemistry, ingredient technology, sensory evaluation, and evaluation of product quality, measurement of shelf life, nutritional labeling and food safety. He retired in 2006 as a Kraft Foods Fellow after 29 years with the company and is now an Adjunct Professor of Meat Science at the University of Wisconsin and member of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Food Research Institute Executive Committee. While at Kraft/ Oscar Mayer, Andy was recognized with three Kraft Superior Achievement Awards, and President’s awards from both the Oscar Mayer Division and Kraft Foods. He has received the American Meat Institute Industry Advancement Award, American Meat Science Association Meat Processing Award and Signal Service Awards, and is a member of the Wisconsin Meat Industry Hall of Fame.

Gordon Davis is all about the pursuit of excellence. He earned two B.S. degrees from Washington State University and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from Texas A&M University. He was a meat scientist at three universities, coached two national championship meat judging teams, and has received 51 awards (11 at a national level). In 1990, he left academia to focus full-time on CEV Multimedia, bringing the expert to thousands of classrooms, starting with meat science, via VHS, DVD and now online. CEV has reached an estimated 100M students worldwide, including 11M+ views of meat science and food safety media over the past 10 years. Gordon and his wife Joyce have founded/co-founded 15 endowments across six universities and one foundation. In 1996, the Texas Tech Meat Laboratory was named in his honor. They gave the largest single donation ($44M) in the university’s history and in January 2022, Texas Tech named the Gordon W. Davis College of Agricultural Sciences & Natural Resources.

Tom Eickman is the current president of Eickman’s Processing Co. Inc. in Seward, IL. Eickman’s is a 3rd generation family owned business specializing in custom processing, including harvest, processing, curing, smoking and sausage making. Eickman's Processing currently has 30 employees. Tom has grown up in the meat industry and has served as president for Illinois Association of Meat Processors and is the current Treasurer for American Association of Meat Processors.

John was only a teenager when SugarCreek was founded in 1966, yet he worked for the company throughout his high school and college years in various positions, learning every aspect of the business. Shortly after graduating from Illinois State University with a bachelor’s degree in business administration, he became plant manager of the then newly acquired facility in Dayton, Ohio. Since taking over the company in 1990, when his father John S. Richardson retired, he transformed the family-owned business from a raw bacon manufacturer with $50 million in annual sales to a widely diversified company with over $1 billion in annual sales.

Steve is a Vice President for Hawkins, Inc. and oversees research and development efforts as well as sales and technical support for the Food Ingredient Group. In this capacity, Steve maintains cooperative research and development agreements with industry, government, and academic institutions, and guides these efforts toward the goal of advancing animal agriculture and the safety of the global food supply. Steve has more than 40 years of experience working with the meat industry and allied suppliers. He has visited and consulted with meat processors in more than 30 countries and has been instrumental in the introduction of new ingredient technologies, both domestically and internationally. Steve is frequently called upon to share his knowledge and expertise and has delivered dozens of invited presentations at meetings of state, regional and international meat industry associations and scientific societies. He has authored peer-reviewed manuscripts, posters/abstracts, symposia publications, technical articles, and is a patented inventor. Philanthropically, Steve is a long time member of the American Meat Science Association and has served in leadership positions (President, Treasurer, and others), and is a current Board Member of Phi Tau Sigma – The Honor Society of Food Science and Technology. Steve holds a B.S. in Animal Science and M.S. Degree in Animal Industries from the University of Connecticut.

David G. McDonald was born and raised on a farm in Northeast Iowa and received his B.S. degree in Animal Science from Iowa State University in 1987. Then he joined OSI Group, a multinational food processing company with nearly 60 facilities in 17 countries. Over the years, after serving in a number of capacities, he became President and Chief Operating Officer. Mr. McDonald serves on the Board of Managers for OSI Group and many of its companies. In addition, he held a seat on the Board of Directors of Marfrig Alimentos SA in Brazil, one of the largest fully integrated protein companies in the world. Mr. McDonald was also the Chairman of the American Meat Institute, the meat industry's largest association, and the first Chairman of the North American Meat Institute, which is the new entity merging the American Meat Institute and North American Meat Association. Mr. McDonald remains an active member of the Executive Board of the North American Meat Institute. In addition, he is a member of the Farm Foundation, a nonprofit organization working across the food and agriculture value chain to build momentum behind meaningful solutions to some of the most important challenges facing farmers and the food industry.