Allen Retires from Staplcotn, Reichle Named President/CEO
September 24, 2018 After 33 years of service to the company – including eight years as president and CEO – Meredith B. Allen retired from Staple Cotton Cooperative Association (Staplcotn) and Staple Cotton Discount Corporation (Stapldiscount) on September 19.
Hank Reichle, formerly executive vice president of Staplcotn and Stapldiscount, was selected by the board to succeed Allen.
Allen joined Staplcotn’s marketing team in 1985 and was promoted to vice president of marketing a year later. In 2008, he became Staplcotn’s executive vice president and was named president and CEO in 2010, succeeding Woods Eastland.
Allen is a former president and former chairman of Cotton Council International and former board member and chairman of the Memphis Branch Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. He is a director and former vice president of the National Cotton Council and a director of Delta Council. Allen served on the boards of The Seam and the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Agribusiness Industry Council, as well as on the cotton committees of both the National Council of Textile Organizations and the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE). He also served on the board of AMCOT, a trade association made up of the four major U.S. cotton cooperatives.
A graduate of the University of Mississippi, Reichle began his professional career in 1997 with Ernst and Young in Memphis. In 2001, he was named corporate controller for the newly-formed, internet-based cotton exchange The Seam, and was soon promoted to chief financial officer. Reichle joined Staplcotn in 2004, and was named senior director of export sales in 2005. He was promoted to vice president of export sales and market administration in 2010 and to vice president of marketing in 2014. He was named executive vice president in 2016.
Reichle serves as first vice president of Cotton Council International and on the boards of the National Cotton Council and The Seam. He was recently elected as an AMCOT director and was named to the Agribusiness Industry Council of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. He is also involved with several community organizations including Greenwood-Leflore Chamber of Commerce and Greenwood Utilities.
Headquartered in Greenwood, MS, Staplcotn was founded in 1921 and is the oldest cotton marketing cooperative in the United States. Staplcotn currently has nearly 7,000 farm accounts in an 11-state area in the Mid-South and Southeast and a warehousing operation with 13 locations in six states. It markets approximately 3 million bales of cotton annually. Stapldiscount is the lending arm and wholly-owned subsidiary of Staplcotn.
Information provided by Staplcotn
GET THE NEWSLETTER TODAY!
