After graduating Purdue in 1928 Orville attended Colorado State University. He was pursuing a radio communications degree and completed all the requirements for the degree. However he did not receive the degree because he didn't finish his thesis. After attending Colorado State University Orville was offered a high school teaching job in Fontanet, IN as a Vocational Agricultural teacher. He accepted this job but only stayed at the school from 1930-1931.
After teaching for a year Orville was offered a job operating a 12,000 acre farm owned by Tony Hulman. The farm was located in Princeton, IN, and the owner Tony Hulman also owned the Indianapolis 500 track. During Orville's time at Princeton Farms he experimented with different hybrid seeds to see what would produce the best result. Also while Orville was at Princeton farms he was visited by Charles Bowman who was a hybrid seed investigator for Purdue. Like Orville, Bowman also attended Purdue and received a major in agronomy. Also like Orville, Bowman was in the fraternity Alpha Gamma Rho; expect Bowman graduated Purdue in 1941.
In 1950 Charles Bowman was offered to buy Indiana's oldest seed corn business called Geo. F. Chester and Son Seed Company that was established in 1936. Orville and Bowman bought the farm in 1951 for $82,000 and changed the name to Chester Hybrids. The two's first break came in 1965 when the discovered a new hybrid of corn which they called Red Bow-65. The first part of the name comes from REDenbacher, the second part of the name comes from BOWman and 65 comes from the date of 1965. They new hybrid breed popped kernels twice the size of regular popcorn. But just like the size of the popcorn the price was double the average bag of popcorn.
After teaching for a year Orville was offered a job operating a 12,000 acre farm owned by Tony Hulman. The farm was located in Princeton, IN, and the owner Tony Hulman also owned the Indianapolis 500 track. During Orville's time at Princeton Farms he experimented with different hybrid seeds to see what would produce the best result. Also while Orville was at Princeton farms he was visited by Charles Bowman who was a hybrid seed investigator for Purdue. Like Orville, Bowman also attended Purdue and received a major in agronomy. Also like Orville, Bowman was in the fraternity Alpha Gamma Rho; expect Bowman graduated Purdue in 1941.
In 1950 Charles Bowman was offered to buy Indiana's oldest seed corn business called Geo. F. Chester and Son Seed Company that was established in 1936. Orville and Bowman bought the farm in 1951 for $82,000 and changed the name to Chester Hybrids. The two's first break came in 1965 when the discovered a new hybrid of corn which they called Red Bow-65. The first part of the name comes from REDenbacher, the second part of the name comes from BOWman and 65 comes from the date of 1965. They new hybrid breed popped kernels twice the size of regular popcorn. But just like the size of the popcorn the price was double the average bag of popcorn.
After a few years of trying to sell this new hybrid popcorn, they realized they needed help. Orville and Bowman headed to a ad agency in Chicago to get advising help on how to best market this new hybrid of popcorn. The agency gave the two men great information that is still incorporated into today popcorn. The first thing the agency said to do was call the popcorn "gourmet popcorn. The second advice the company gave was to take advantage of Orville's quirky name and change the name from Red Bow to Orville Redenbacher Gourmet Popping Corn.
After changing these two details the company took off. By 1970 they had more then one-third of the popcorn industry sales. However in 1976 Orville and Bowman decided to sell their industry to Hunt-Wesson food. Over the years the company has switched hands multiple times but in 1990 ConAgra bought the company and still own the rights to it today.