Mike Geddes is Chairman and President of Geddes and Company, a Phoenix based private investment and consulting firm he founded in 1978 which acts for its own account and occasionally assists clients in the principal areas of mergers, acquisitions and divestitures; financial and business consulting, and investing in real estate and business opportunities. Prior to forming Geddes and Company, he served for 10 years as Chief Executive Officer of AZL Resources, Inc., a diversified agribusiness and natural resources company which he helped turnaround from a nearly bankrupt position and take public in 1968. Since forming Geddes and Company, he has served as Chairman and major investor in numerous companies in many diverse industries. He has participated in over one hundred mergers, acquisitions, joint ventures or divestitures and a number of public equity offerings, going private transactions, and debt and equity private placements. His diversified ownership and management involvement has included operating companies such as Spalding (sporting goods), Evenflo (baby products), Athearn (model trains), Coe & Van Loo Consultants (civil engineering), two futures brokerage firms at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, several oil and gas companies and direct participation in the acquisition, development and/or sale of over $500,000,000 of all types of real estate. He has served on the Board of Directors of seven publicly traded companies and has received numerous national and local awards. A graduate of Salpointe Catholic High School in Tucson, he received scholarships which enabled him to graduate from the University of Notre Dame and obtain his Masters of Business Administration degree from Harvard. He also was awarded an honorary doctorate at Colorado State University. He has been heavily involved in a large number of civic, charitable and educational causes including chairing various efforts that have averted the closures of two high schools and led to the establishment of three new elementary schools, a new high school, a new church building and an employment agency for the homeless. He is very active at the University of Notre Dame, where he has served as a member of the Board of Trustees since 1996 and on various other advisory councils and committees since 1983. He also has served as Chairman of numerous local entities such as Scottsdale Healthcare, the Deans Council of ASUs WP Carey School of Business, Boys Hope Girls Hope of Arizona and many Catholic Diocese of Phoenix entities. He continues to serve on the boards of many of these and other civic and charitable organizations.
