Chris Weber, plant manager for the $180 million Pryor Gatorade facility now under construction in the MidAmerica Industrial Park in Pryor, will give this year’s Carl G. and Gladys L. Herrington Distinguished Endowed Lecture at Pryor High School on Thursday, April 19.
This is the first time this event will be held in Pryor where Rogers State University has a branch campus.
The lecture, which is free and open to the public, will begin at 10 a.m. in the Pryor High School Auditorium located at 1100 S.E. 9th St. in Pryor. The late Carl G. and Gladys L. Herrington established the Herrington Distinguished Lectureship Endowment through the Rogers State University Foundation. Weber’s presentation is the 14th in the Herrington Lecture Series.
Weber, a certified plant engineer, has more than 20 years of experience with Gatorade products. He helped launch new facilities in Atlanta and Indianapolis, and has worked in plants located in North Carolina and Tennessee.
The 1.4 million-square-foot manufacturing and distribution facility is slated to open later this year and will employ 280 people. Gatorade estimates that the plant will have a $5 to $7 billion impact on Oklahoma’s economy during its first 10 years in operation.
Gatorade’s parent company is New York-based PepsiCo, the third largest beverage and food company in the world. PepsiCo currently employs about 1,200 Oklahomans.
Raised on a farm in central Illinois, Weber earned an engineering degree from the University of Illinois. He serves on the board of the Mayes County United Way and is a member of the Pryor Area Chamber of Commerce and the MidAmerica Industrial Park Plant Managers Association.
The Herrington family established the lectureship endowment as a way to provide exceptional educational opportunities at RSU. The Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education provided matching funds for the endowment.
Mr. Herrington, a retired Exxon executive, served on the RSU Foundation Board of Directors and was a longtime supporter of the university. In 1990, RSU awarded Mr. Herrington the Jefferson Fellow Award. The university’s Herrington Hall, which houses RSU’s School of Business and Technology, was named in honor of the Herrington family.
For more information, call the RSU Foundation at (918) 343-7773.