Donald J. Tyson, 80, the former Tyson Foods Inc. chief executive who led the poultry company to dominance in the industry, died Thursday of cancer.
In 1952, Tyson joined the business his father had founded about two decades earlier, and he became its president in 1966. He built up the company by acquiring other poultry producers in the 1970s and ’80s, and Tyson Foods became the world’s largest poultry producer when it bought Holly Farms in 1989.
“He was a true visionary who led Tyson Foods from a small regional chicken company to a multibillion-dollar food-processing enterprise,” John R. Tyson, his son who is now chairman of the company, said in a statement. “He will be missed by everyone who knew him.”
Tyson’s father, John W. Tyson, founded the company in the early 1930s. John Tyson became a leader in the industry by hauling live chickens to distant markets in the Midwest, at a time before refrigeration made for easy transport.
