GENERAL PARTNERS AND OFFICERS
John T. Stout, Jr., Chief Executive Officer, has over 30 years of food manufacturing experience. Prior to forming Plaza Belmont in 1998, Mr. Stout was President of Manildra Milling Corporation (Shawnee Mission, Kansas), an internationally owned food ingredient manufacturing company. In 1990, he helped form a group of investors who purchased Diana Fruit Company (Santa Clara, California) from Tyson Foods. Prior to that Mr. Stout was Executive Vice President of Dixie Portland Flour Mills (Memphis, Tennessee), a subsidiary of Holly Farms. Mr. Stout is active within the food industry having served as Chairman of the International Wheat Gluten Association, the Wheat Quality Council, the Allied Trades of the Baking Industry, and the Young Baking Executives of the American Bakers Association. He has served on the Board of Directors of the American Bakers Association, The American Institute of Baking, Dixie Portland Flour Mills, Manildra Energy, Manildra Milling, Agricor, SPI Foods, Bryce Corporation, Premier Blending, Hilton House Foods, and National Harvest. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of The Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, The Mennel Milling Company, The Andersons, Diana Fruit Company, Casa de Oro Foods, MaMa Rosa’s and Packaging Products. John has been active in the YPO, and has served as Moderator of the Alpha Forum in the Kansas City chapter of YPO. Mr. Stout has a BBA from Emory University.
Robert J. Parnow, President and Chief Operating Officer, has over 30 years of food manufacturing experience. Prior to forming Plaza Belmont, Mr. Parnow was Vice President of Manildra Milling Corporation. Mr. Parnow previously held management, production and technical positions with Holly Farms, ConAgra, Archer Daniels Midland, Pillsbury and Peavey Company. He is active in the food industry with memberships in Allied Trades of the Baking Industry, the Young Baking Executives of the ABA, the Institute of Food Technologists, and the American Association of Cereal Chemists. He has served as President and on the Board of Directors of SPI Foods and Premier Blending and as a board member of Hilton House Foods. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of Casa de Oro Foods and MaMa Rosa’s. Mr. Parnow has a B.S. degree in Food Science from the University of Minnesota and a MBA from the College of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota.
John S. Dalton, Vice President, has over 30 years of investment banking and private equity experience. Prior to joining Plaza Belmont, Mr. Dalton was President of Kansas Venture Capital, Inc., a $40 million venture capital company providing equity and mezzanine capital to later-stage Midwestern-based companies. Mr. Dalton previously held corporate finance and investment banking positions with the MidAmerican/Mercantile banking group and Stern Brothers & Co. in Kansas City. Mr. Dalton has extensive mergers and acquisitions, venture capital and capital markets experience. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of Casa de Oro Foods and MaMa Rosa’s. He received the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) designation in 1978 and has a BS in Business Administration and a MBA from the University of Kansas.
Timothy W. Cranor, Vice President, has over 30 years of experience in the food and commodity business. Mr. Cranor came to Plaza Belmont from Interstate Bakeries Corporation, where he was Senior Vice President of Purchasing for two years and later spent seven years in operations with profit and loss responsibility for regional bakeries. Prior to IBC, Mr. Cranor spent twelve years with Cereal Foods Processors, a privately held flour milling company, and ten years with the grain division of Farmland Industries. He has served on the Board of Directors of the Kansas City Board of Trade, the American Institute of Baking, the Wheat Quality Council and the Kansas Grain and Feed Association. He currently is the President of Casa de Oro and serves on the Board of Directors of Casa de Oro and MaMa Rosa’s. Mr. Cranor graduated cum lade with a B.S. degree from Kansas State University and is currently on the Board of Trustees for the Kansas State University Foundation.
Memphis Office
John T. Stout, Chairman is a retired Vice President and board member of Holly Farms Corporation, where he served as Chairman of the Flour and Bakery Supplies Group. While at Holly Farms Corporation, Mr. Stout presided over the acquisition of numerous food manufacturing companies. After 42 years with Holly Farms Corporation, Mr. Stout led a buyout of Diana Fruit Company from Tyson Foods. Mr. Stout also served as Chairman of the Board of Orange County Bank in Paoli, IN from 1955 to 1997. Mr. Stout graduated from Earlham College and has a MBA from Harvard Business School.