More information about Dean Mefford*

The following information about Dean Mefford was obtained from various sources:

4/4/88 (St. Louis Post Dispatch) Dean A. Mefford, president and chief operating officer of Ralston Purina International, was elected corporate vice president of Ralston Purina Co.

2/20/90 (St. Louis Post Dispatch) Ralston Purina Co. has formed a joint venture with a Hungarian farm cooperative to produce livestock and poultry feeds in Hungary. Dean A. Mefford, president of Ralston Purina International, says the venture is the first of its kind between an American company and an Eastern European farm cooperative. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

5/5/91 (St. Louis Post Dispatch) Dean A. Mefford has been appointed to the YMCA of Greater St. Louis' metropolitan board of directors. Mefford is corporate vice president of Ralston Purina co. and president of Ralston Purina International.

1/31/92 (St. Louis Post Dispatch) Dean Mefford, corporate vice president of Ralston Purina Co. and president of Ralston Purina International, was appointed to the Business Advisory Council of the U.S. Agency for International Development.

7/26/93 (St. Louis Post Dispatch) While at Ralston Purina,  Mefford,  then vice president, sold 1,000 shares of common at $44.38 each on June 10, and now directly and indirectly holds 35, 404 common. (Trading by officers and directors in their companies' stocks is seen by many investors as an important indication of executives' confidence in their companies. Insider transactions are legal unless they use information that has not been publicly disclosed.)

3/12/94 (St. Louis Post Dispatch) Dean Mefford, principal of Mefford Consulting, joined the board of directors of the Association of Pet Industry Independents as an outside director.

9/1/94 from "The frying game." (Harvard Capital Corp.) in   a Canadian Business article by David Baines, describing a management shakeup at a French fry vending machine company it says a previous executive was replaced as "head of the Barbados subsidiary by Dean Mefford former president of Ralston Purina Co. International."

9/12/94 (Chicago Tribune) Viskase Corp. appointed Dean A. Mefford president and chief executive, replacing F.E. Gustafson, who remains chairman of Viskase and executive vice president of Envirodyne Industries, its Oak Brook-based parent. Viskase is a supplier of food packaging materials.

6/96 Panel discussion "The need for speed: how customer communications puts time on your side" reported in Chief Executive (June 1996, n114) "The participants included Mackay Envelope CEO Harvey Mackay, Viskase CEO Dean Mefford (listed as "president and chief executive of Viskase Corp., a $560 million flexible packaging and casing company based in Chicago"),  IGA CEO Thomas S. Haggai, RAM Mobile Data CEO William Lenahan and Cobra Electronics CEO Jerry Kalov." Quote:

Margins are not great in the food business, so anything we can do to reduce our customers' costs and make them more competitive presents us with an opportunity to gain market share. To do that, we need information. We want our sales force to know our customers' business as well it knows its own. Our salespeople have to understand what customers need and how they can reduce customers' costs. In turn, when we package hotdogs, for example, our manufacturing people have to know far enough in advance whether they need a new label because of government regulations or whether the customer wants to do a promotion the following weekend that requires a different casing.

11/18/96 From an article in Computer World:  "At Viskase Corp. in Chicago, that means telling CEO Dean Mefford how implementing new enterprise client/server applications will help the company make more money selling casings for hot dogs and other meats."

10/97 Report on conference "Managing hypergrowth" in Chief Executive (No.128 p58(11)  "The participating CEOs addressed the challenge of attracting and retaining qualified workers and improving customer relations while undergoing hypergrowth. These chief executives included Raymond Burton of TTX Co, J. Michael Cook of Deloitte & Touche, Dean Mefford of Viskase Corp, Frank Ligouri of Olsten Corp and Katherine Hammer of Evolutionary Technologies International. Former vice presidential candidate Jack Kemp and former Federal Reserve Gov Lawrence Lindsey discussed the growth of the economy."

8/12/99  (Chicago Tribune) In an article about airline travelers, a Dean Mefford was described as the chairman of a phone-accessories company.

* (This list assumes that all the citations for Dean Mefford refer to the same person.)