March 29, 2016
Schnatter speaks in Presidential Lecture Series
 |
|
President Mitch Daniels and John Schnatter, founder and CEO of Papa John's Pizza. (Purdue University photo/Mark Simons) |
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — John Schnatter, founder and CEO of Papa John's Pizza, was featured Monday (March 28) at Stewart Center's Loeb Playhouse as part of the Spring 2016 Presidential Lecture Series.
The Presidential Lecture Series is a diverse series of lectures on policy, leadership, culture and society. The series will feature prominent experts and practitioners from various fields of interest for both the academics and the community at large. Connected with each public presentation, speakers will be integrated into relevant curricular activities on the West Lafayette campus during their visits.
Purdue President Mitch Daniels led the discussion with Schnatter, which also included an audience question-and-answer session.
Schnatter has strong ties to Indiana. He was born in Jeffersonville and earned a bachelor's degree in business from Ball State University, delivering pizzas on campus while a student. After returning home to Jeffersonville in 1983, he started his own pizza company, knocking down a broom closet in his father's tavern, installing an oven and delivering pizzas out of the back of the bar.
He believed by using fresh dough and quality ingredients, he could make the same great-tasting pizza that locally owned shops offered but didn't deliver. Papa John's is now the third-largest pizza chain in the world, with more than 4,700 restaurants in 50 states and 38 countries and territories, and a market capitalization of $2.2 billion.
Schnatter was inducted into the Louisville Achievement Business Hall of Fame in 2000 and the Junior Achievement U.S. Business Hall of Fame.
The Presidential Lecture Series will feature former secretary of state and labor George Shultz at 6:30 p.m. April 19 in Loeb Playhouse.
Shultz, an economist, served in President Richard M. Nixon's administration as secretary of labor from 1969-70, director of the Office of Management and Budget from 1970-72 and as treasury secretary from 1972-74. He also served in President Ronald Reagan's administration as secretary of state from 1982-89. He is one of only two individuals to serve in four U.S. Cabinet positions. The other is Elliot Richardson.
Before entering government service, he was professor of economics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Chicago, serving from 1962-69 as dean of the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business. Between 1974 and 1982, he was an executive at Bechtel, becoming the firm's first president.
He is the Thomas W. and Susan B. Ford Distinguished Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.
