Goldsboro Milling Company celebrates 100 years
By Brandon Davis
Published in News on September 25, 2016 1:45 AM
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News-Argus/BRANDON DAVIS
Gordon Maxwell, middle, president of Goldsboro Milling Co., cuts a truck-shaped cake Saturday for the company's 100th anniversary. He stands with his wife, Charlotte Maxwell, Tom Yarboro, left, and Jim Maxwell.
Goldsboro Milling Company celebrated it's 100th anniversary Saturday with nearly 450 guests and a mack truck cake to cut.
A large white tent shaded guests at 938 Millers Chapel Road, where the president of Goldsboro Milling, Gordon Maxwell, sliced the first piece of cake.
"It's pretty exciting. It's come a long way," he said.
He said the company has grown since he started working at his grandfather's family business in 1961, and he believes there will be another 100 years to come. He said Goldsboro Milling is the 11th largest pig producer in the country, and he said the company owns half of the largest turkey company in the country, Butterball.
His cousin, Jim Maxwell, believes Goldsboro Milling will continue in the future as well, but he said it all started with Gordon Maxwell's father, Hugh Maxwell. He said he started a milling company with just feed, grain and grits.
He said his father, Louie Maxwell, helped Gordon Maxwell push the company forward, where now the company serves 13 counties in North Carolina and has roughly 650 employees.
"It's really special. It's a very, very special thing," he said, who is the company's secretary treasurer. "And that's for all of us here."
A family member of the company's management team, Tom Yarboro, said it was gratifying to see the employees and their families at the event. He said Goldsboro Milling is a fifth-generation, family-owned company, and he said the employees come from generations of workers at Goldsboro Milling as well.
Yusef Ewais, the company's director of human resources and the event's organizer looked at the guests, employees and owners at the celebration and saw a a big family.
"It's good to see a family-owned business can still come together as a family even after 100 years," he said. "It's amazing to me that whether, regardless of what we do, whether you're working in a feed mill or working on a farm, driving a truck, we're all still part of the Goldsboro Milling Company."