Richard (Rick) McNeel

Rick is an experienced international executive who began his career with Amoco Chemical as a chemical process engineer. Toward the end of his 30 years with Amoco, he rose to Group Vice President for all of Amoco Chemical’s Intermediate businesses.

Rick’s career highlights included turning around their Engineering Polymer and Carbon Fiber businesses as President, and an assignment in Hong Kong that included starting their first two joint ventures in China and starting new ventures in Indonesia and Singapore. He also represented Amoco on the Boards of joint ventures in Taiwan, Korea and Japan.

Following BP’s purchase of Amoco, Rick went to London as Group Vice President for six of BP Amoco Chemical global businesses, in addition to heading Human Resources, Information Technology, Environment, Health & Safety and Legal for the Chemical Company. After three years in London, Rick retired and was recruited 11 months later to serve as President & CEO of LORD Corporation, a private Company in Cary, North Carolina.

LORD was a manufacturing Company that sold chemical, mechanical and electro-mechanical products to the automotive, aerospace, and general industrial markets. LORD’s focus was development of new technologies to solve customers’ problems, selling only when they had a clear value proposition. Rick ran the Company for ten years and served as Chairman of the Board for four years. LORD was sold to Parker Hanifin in October of 2019 for $3.7 Billion.

Rick has served on other company Boards in England and North Carolina, the Board of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. He currently serves on the Boards of the North Carolina Museum of Art, The University of Nebraska Engineering College and his daughter’s non-profit “Alive Center” for teens in the Chicago suburbs. He holds a B.S in Chemical Engineering from the University of Nebraska and an MBA from the University of Chicago. He and his wife Carol have a combined five children and 10 grandchildren.