As Chairman and CEO of Perdue Farms, Jim heads the company’s executive team and is responsible for developing the company’s vision and growth strategies. Jim grew up in the family poultry business, but left after high school to attend college to pursue his interests in biology. He received his undergraduate degree from Wake Forest University and his master’s degree in marine biology from the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth, doing growth rate research on the Malaysian prawn. In 1983, Jim earned a doctorate in fisheries from the University of Washington in Seattle, where he studied survival of the Japanese oyster to summer mortality through genetic selection. He then returned to the family business and in 1989. Jim earned his MBA from Salisbury State University and became Chairman and CEO at Perdue Farms, Inc. in 1991.