William H. Sperber, PhD
Global Ambassador for Food Protection, Cargill, Inc.
After completing undergraduate majors in zoology and chemistry, William Sperber earned his M. S. (1967) and Ph. D. (1969) degrees in microbiology from the University of Wisconsin at Madison. In his subsequent employment with major food companies he has become one of the world’s experts in designing and controlling the microbiological safety and quality of foods.
Several of Bill’s innovations in graduate school were the development of M-Broth and the Enrichment-Serology procedure for Salmonella detection, which was a forerunner of ELISA-based technologies. At Best Foods in 1970, twelve years before the Tylenol® incident, he led the development of the first tamper-evident packaging feature for a consumer food product. Hired in 1972 to conduct the first hazard analyses for consumer food products in Pillsbury’s novel HACCP system, Bill led Pillsbury’s microbiology and food safety programs until 1995. At that time he joined Cargill, where he remains employed today on a post-retirement basis as Global Ambassador for Food Protection.
A former chair of the IFT Division of Food Microbiology and the Food Microbiology Research Conference, Bill was appointed five times by the U. S. Secretary of Agriculture to the National Advisory Committee on Microbiological Criteria for Foods. The author of numerous publications and presentations, he is currently working on several microbiology reference books, “still trying to make the world safer for people who eat.” Bill and his wife, Renate, enjoy gardening, bicycling, books, music, and travel.
