April 5, 2016

Eric started his career at The Pillsbury Company where he received his classic commodity merchandising training and became the Manager of Market Development for their Specialty Commodities Group. In 1988, he became Vice President of Commodity Operations at publicly-traded International Proteins Corporation (IPC). IPC was delisted when the executive team determined that the portfolio of operations was more valuable as independent companies than was being realized as a single entity. Along with the former Chairman of IPC, Eric purchased the trading book, physical assets and the IPC name and recapitalized the business as a privately held entity in 1990. In 1998, Eric architected the sale of IPC to The Scoular Company where he joined their BoD and formed their Industrial Markets Division where he was General Manager. In 2007 Eric formed a new venture under the Chicago Climate Exchange to develop carbon sequestration programs for farmers and landowners. This led to the formation of Conservis Corp. in 2009 to develop a management software platform for large scale farming enterprises. Eric left Conservis at the end of 2016 to lead Pipeline Foods. Eric is a native of Urbana, IL where he received his B.S. in Agricultural Economics from the University of Illinois before moving to his new home state of Minnesota. He has continued to serve his alma mater in a variety of roles throughout his professional career. He enjoys traveling & spending time with his family at their lake cabin in northern Wisconsin.