C. Michael Harper is a United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 businessman who led ConAgra Foods

ConAgra Foods

ConAgra Foods, Inc. is an American packaged foods company. ConAgra's products are available in supermarkets, as well as restaurants and food service establishments. Its headquarters are located in Omaha, Nebraska...

 from 1975 to 1993, growing the company by many acquisitions

Mergers and acquisitions

Mergers and acquisitions refers to the aspect of corporate strategy, corporate finance and management dealing with the buying, selling, dividing and combining of different companies and similar entities that can help an enterprise grow rapidly in its sector or location of origin, or a new field or...

. He was born in Michigan

Michigan

Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....

, attended Purdue University

Purdue University

Purdue University, located in West Lafayette, Indiana, U.S., is the flagship university of the six-campus Purdue University system. Purdue was founded on May 6, 1869, as a land-grant university when the Indiana General Assembly, taking advantage of the Morrill Act, accepted a donation of land and...

 as an undergraduate, and earned his MBA

Master of Business Administration

The Master of Business Administration is a :master's degree in business administration, which attracts people from a wide range of academic disciplines. The MBA designation originated in the United States, emerging from the late 19th century as the country industrialized and companies sought out...

 at the University of Chicago

University of Chicago

The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...

. During his tenure at ConAgra, sales rose from $636 million in 1974 to $9 billion in 1987. Some of the largest sales increases came in frozen-food and poultry.