Who We Are

Mike Harding has 36 years of Operations experience with Anheuser-Busch Companies. He is the Retired president and chief executive officer of the company’s Packaging Group. He was responsible for creating high-quality, low-cost packaging materials for Anheuser-Busch and some of the world’s leading soft drink manufacturers.

This $2.6 billion in revenue packaging subsidiary consists of five business units: Metal Container Corp. (can and lid manufacturing); Anheuser-Busch Recycling Corp. (one of the world’s largest aluminum recyclers); Eagle Packaging, Inc. (crown liner manufacturing); Longhorn Glass Corp. (glass bottle manufacturing), and eventually sold Precision Printing and Packaging, Inc. (label manufacturing). These subsidiaries supplied Anheuser-Busch’s 12 domestic breweries and more than 80 soft drink filling locations and third-party distribution centers.

Harding provided managerial direction and leadership for the Packaging Group’s corporate offices in St. Louis Mo, including 400 corporate and salaried employees involved in Operations, Maintenance, Human Resources, Sales, Engineering, Research and Development and Quality Assurance. He was also responsible for the management of 14 manufacturing plants and facilities, with approximately 1,900 employees, throughout the United States.

Prior to leading the Packaging Group, Harding was Vice President, Plant Operations and Operations for Anheuser-Busch, Inc. from 1998 to 2005. In this capacity he was directly responsible for Corporate Operations as well as 12 breweries throughout the United States and provided maintenance support and operational targets of performance for international plant operations. This responsibility encompassed 10,000 plant and corporate employees, plant infrastructures and operations, focusing on capital and non-capital projects, plant modernizations / automation and information system upgrades for one of the largest brewers in the world.

Harding was responsible for day-to-day manufacturing, human resources and labor relations activities such that production schedules and variances, line efficiencies, asset utilization, maintenance management, utilities, safety, quality, training, and costs fell within budget and parameters of the Corporate strategic and financial plans. He was also responsible for streamlining operations, reducing waste, eliminating non-value-added work/activities, and developing an empowered, highly skilled salaried, union and non-union work force. He worked closely with plant safety and environmental staff groups to ensure that employees, the plants and their surrounding acreage remained in full compliance with all federal, state and local regulatory guidelines on a +/- 7B annual budget.

This was accomplished working For, With and Through some of the most talented Salaried and Bargaining Unit employees throughout the United States and International Subsidiaries.

In addition to his appointment to the Anheuser-Busch Companies Strategy Committee in 2006, Harding has served as a director on the following boards: Anheuser-Busch Packaging Group, 2006; Mathews-Dickey Boys & Girls Club, 2004; National Safety Council, 2001 – 2003; Anheuser-Busch, Inc., 2001-2008 and the Anheuser-Busch Companies Environmental, Health & Safety Policy Committee, 2001-2008.

Harding began working for Anheuser-Busch as a production management trainee in 1973 at the St. Louis brewery. He has a master’s degree in business administration (EMBA) from Pepperdine University and a bachelor’s science degree from Central Missouri State University (now University of Central Missouri). He also successfully completed the Manufacturing Executive Program via the University of Michigan’s Business School in 2000 and postgraduate studies in Industrial Technology/Manufacturing at the University of North Florida in 1982.