Verl Purdy, a member of West Virginia University Chemical Engineering Academy of Distinguished Alumni, the West Virginia Business Hall of Fame and the WVU Foundation Board of Directors will deliver a lecture as part of the WVU College of Engineering and Mineral Resources Distinguished Lecture Series Thursday, April 27.

His talk,Engineer to Entrepreneur: A Real-Life Experience,will begin at 4 p.m. in Room G-39 of the Engineering Sciences Building on the Evansdale Campus.

Purdy is president and CEO of AGDATA , a leading agricultural data analysis and marketing company. A native of Poca, he earned a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from WVU in 1964 and a master’s in business administration from the University of North Carolina in 1973.

He joined the BASF Group, a leading chemical company, in 1969. In 1980, he became president and CEO of Rio Tinto Zinc Chemicals. In 1984, Purdy founded AGDATA , where he has grown the company into a worldwide operation. With operations and offices in Latin America , Europe , Canada , the Far East and the United States, AGDATA Inc is the largest agricultural data analysis and marketing company in the world.

Purdy’s commitment to excellence extends beyond his companies to the community, especially in his support of education. In addition to his membership on the WVU Foundation Board of Directors, he is a Paul Harris Fellow in Rotary International, a sponsor of the Technology Forum at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte, a member of the Business Advisory Committee of the Belk College of Business at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte, and has established an annual scholarship fund for Poca High School students. He also established a faculty fellowship in the WVU Department of Chemical Engineering.

Purdy is married to the former Joyce Craddock and the couple has three children- J. Scott, Susan and Steven.