Michael Berghoff was inducted in the Boiler Business Exchange (BBE) Hall of Fame on Oct. 23. From left, Berghoff is pictured with BBE vice chair, Mark DeFabis and BBE chair, Pete Quinn (Purdue for Life Foundation/Brayden Williams)
Michael Berghoff, chair of the Purdue University Board of Trustees, was inducted into the Boiler Business Exchange (BBE) of Indianapolis Hall of Fame on Wednesday (Oct. 23). BBE is a nonprofit group that seeks to raise the profile of Purdue University in Indianapolis by facilitating the university’s business-to-business exchange.
Berghoff, who recently announced his retirement from the board, is a 1985 Purdue graduate with a bachelor’s degree in industrial management. He is also the founder and president of Lenex Steel Corp., the region’s largest steel fabricator, headquartered in Indianapolis. As the board chair, Berghoff led Purdue through unprecedented growth and success while managing significant challenges in the higher education landscape and operating through a global pandemic. Under his leadership, Purdue experienced record innovation and commercialization activity, record fundraising, and significant growth of the physical plant in West Lafayette, across Indiana and beyond. This included the successful launch of Purdue’s expansion into Indianapolis and the development of new vital partnerships with the university, including Rolls-Royce, Saab, Schweitzer Engineering Labs and SK hynix.
The 2024 BBE Hall of Fame class included Mike Dilts (BS construction management ’81), chairman and CEO of Shiel Sexton Company, and Steve Hageman (Certificate, College of Agriculture, ’76), chairman of the board at Hageman Group.
About Boiler Business Exchange of Indianapolis, Inc.
The Boiler Business Exchange of Indianapolis (BBE) was formed by a group of businessmen and women in the Indianapolis area who share a common passion for all things that are Purdue. The goal of the organization is to raise the profile of Purdue University in Indianapolis and to support Purdue University, the Purdue Alumni Association and the John Purdue Club. The nonprofit group is tapped into the business community of Indianapolis to help promote Purdue by hosting high profile events, encouraging attendance at the various Purdue events and keeping its members engaged with the university.
About Purdue University
Purdue University is a public research institution demonstrating excellence at scale. Ranked among top 10 public universities and with two colleges in the top four in the United States, Purdue discovers and disseminates knowledge with a quality and at a scale second to none. More than 105,000 students study at Purdue across modalities and locations, including nearly 50,000 in person on the West Lafayette campus. Committed to affordability and accessibility, Purdue’s main campus has frozen tuition 13 years in a row. See how Purdue never stops in the persistent pursuit of the next giant leap — including its first comprehensive urban campus in Indianapolis, the Mitch Daniels School of Business, Purdue Computes and the One Health initiative — at https://www.purdue.edu/president/strategic-initiatives