LOUISVILLE, Kentucky — Brown-Forman – the parent company of Jack Daniel’s Distillery – is an independent, family-controlled, 150 year old business and they plan to keep it that way.

On Wednesday, they announced that after 14 years, Board Chair G. Garvin Brown IV planned to retire from the BF Board of Directors effective in July. Campbell P. Brown will succeed him and take over at the company’s Annual Meeting of Stockholders.

Both men are the great-great grandson of the company’s founder, George Gavin Brown. In 1870 with just a $5,500 borrowed investment, Brown the patriarch became the first whiskey maker to sell the spirit in a glass bottle instead of a barrel. Fast forward to 2021 and Brown-Forman’s brands are supported by approximately 4,800 employees and sold in more than 170 countries worldwide.

“Brown-Forman has endured and thrived as an independent beverage alcohol company in part because of our deliberate and well-planned leadership transitions, like the one being announced today,” Garvin Brown IV said in a press release.

Campbell P. Brown, age 53, has worked with the company for 26 years. Campbell managed Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Whiskey and, most recently, has been stewarding the renaissance of the company’s founding brand as President of Old Forester. Campbell serves on the Board of Directors for the Kentucky Distillers Association, representing Brown-Forman’s interests in its home state.

“I am deeply honored by the Board’s decision to appoint me as its incoming Chair,” Campbell stated in a press release. “It will be my great pleasure to serve in this role and continue the journey George Garvin Brown set us on when he pledged Brown-Forman’s ambition, distilled into five simple words, that there is Nothing Better in the Market.”

Brown-Forman purchased Jack Daniel’s Distillery from the Motlow family in 1956. Since then the Lynchburg brand has risen to the company’s flagship brand. It also owns spirit brands Old Forester, Finlandia, Woodford Reserve, Herradura, and others. To learn more about the company, including their history, visit their website by clicking here. •

{The Lynchburg Times is the only independently owned and operated community newspaper in Lynchburg, Tennessee. We cover Metro Moore County government, Jack Daniel’s Distillery, Nearest Green Distillery, Tims Ford State Park, Motlow State Community College, Moore County High School, Moore County Middle School, Lynchburg Elementary, Raider Sports, plus regional and state news.}