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Movers and Shakers

By CA Staff

Oscar Basulto

Co-President

Habanos S.A.,

Oscar Basulto is the most powerful man in the world of Cuban cigars. Not only is he the joint head of the global Cuban cigar distributor Habanos S.A., he is the president of Tabacuba, the umbrella organization that coordinates the production of all tobacco products on the island, from handmade cigars to bulk tobacco shipments.

The 58-year-old Cuban is a straight-talking, salt-of-the-earth character who enjoys a good joke as well as a fine cigar, but he's extremely serious when it comes to his job. Tabacuba, created in 2000, has a workforce of more than 250,000, and oversees the annual production of some 280 million to 300 million cigars -- about half for domestic consumption. The $240 million company also supervises the production of about 10 billion cigarettes and exports 12,000 tons of bulk tobacco. Basulto, who has worked in agriculture since the early 1960s, says his current posts give him the most satisfaction. "I am working for one of the most prestigious products of my country," he says.

-- James Suckling

Jim Colucci

Senior V.P., Sales and Marketing

Altadis U.S.A. Inc.

Jim Colucci, 56, oversees the sales and marketing plans for the impressive portfolio of brands owned by Altadis U.S.A, the largest manufacturer of cigars in the United States and part of the Altadis S.A. Group, the largest maker and marketer of cigars in the world. Colucci has spent virtually his entire career in the cigar business, mainly working with domestic, or mass-market, cigars for the first 20 years. In 1998, he was named to his current post, which also includes the oversight of all of Altadis's premium cigars. During the past four years, Colucci was involved in the difficult task of reestablishing some equilibrium in the cigar market, working through the huge inventories built up during the boom, and helping to stabilize the production capacity on the manufacturing side. Colucci argues that today the product being shipped to the market is better than it has ever been.

-- Gordon Mott

Theo Folz

President and CEO

Altadis U.S.A. Inc.

Theo Folz, 59, has been a key player in the integration of the former Consolidated Cigar Corp. into the global conglomerate created by the merger of Tabacalera de España and France's SEITA. Altadis U.S.A. produces many brands, including Montecristo, Romeo y Julieta, H. Upmann and Onyx Reserve, and is the distributor for Te-Amo cigars in the United States. Folz has spent his entire life in the cigar business. When he was five he tagged along with his father, a cigar salesman, on sales calls. Folz believes strongly that the cigar market is healthier today than it's ever been, and that the total number of cigar smokers is at least double what it was 10 years ago.

-- GM

Bob Franzblau

Owner

Thompson Cigar Co.

Bob Franzblau was searching for a business opportunity when his friend and mentor, Stanford Newman, pointed him to Thompson Cigar Co., which had been founded in 1915. "The company was nearing the end of its rope," says Franzblau, who acquired the business in 1960. "They had lost money in consecutive years." Thompson made natural-wrapped figurados, not what the U.S. market wanted at the time. Franzblau abandoned manufacturing and engaged Newman and others to make cigars for him, particularly green, or candela, cigars, which were in high demand. "It was the best deal I ever made," says Franzblau, now 74.

Franzblau has never smoked, to which he credits some of his success. "Some of the more spectacular failures in the business were caused by manufacturers who thought their taste was overriding," says Franzblau. Instead of selling cigars he thinks are good, he simply sells cigars that his customers enjoy.

-- David Savona

Carlos Fuente Jr.

President

Tabacalera A. Fuente y Cia.

"Look at this," says Carlos Fuente Jr., showing off the work of one of the most talented cigar rollers at Tabacalera A. Fuente. The top is a wild mop of dark tobacco. The body of the cigar, a complex figurado, has curves like a supermodel. The foot is narrow, wrapped with a different leaf. The cigar, like so many others Fuente proudly displays, will never be sold. It's a special shape that he will give away to friends or auction off for charity, one of his driving passions. Spending time with the 48-year-old Fuente makes one imagine that he couldn't possibly do any other job. Fuente was born into the family trade. He played in tobacco bales and learned the art of blending at the side of his father, Carlos Fuente Sr. His crowning achievement is the Fuente Fuente OpusX, launched in 1995. The cigar proved to the world that Fuente's beloved Dominican Republic could grow fine shade wrapper tobacco. The ultra-rare cigars have made the Fuentes world famous, and Fuente Jr. lovingly calls them "my children."

-- DS

Jaime Garcia-Andrade

Co-President

Habanos S.A.

Jaime Garcia-Andrade is a soft-spoken, thoughtful man, which is perhaps not what some might expect for one of the heads of Habanos S.A., the global distributor of Cuban cigars. The 46-year-old Spaniard was made joint-president of the organization in late 1999, along with Oscar Basulto, shortly after Cuba agreed to sell half of Habanos to global tobacco giant Altadis for nearly half a billion dollars.

Garcia-Andrade is more of a coach than an autocratic leader at Habanos, so he takes little or no credit for any of the improvements in quality and distribution of Cuban cigars. Instead, he always praises the Cubans for taking the initiative to better their prestigious product. "It's quality that counts now," he says. "It's part of the mentality in everyone working in cigars now in Cuba." His comments may still include a large amount of wishful thinking, but many aficionados already see a change for the better.

-- JS

George Gershel

Senior Vice President

Altadis U.S.A. Inc.

George Gershel has always been a tobacco man. The 72-year-old is the fourth generation in his family to work in tobacco, and he lives for acquiring the best leaf possible for the dozens of brands made by cigar powerhouse Altadis U.S.A. More than four decades ago, Gershel began working for Consolidated Cigar Corp. as an assistant tobacco buyer. The company changed ownership various times, the latest in 1999, when SEITA bought Consolidated and later merged with Spain's Tabacalera to form Altadis. Gershel's talent for finding first-class tobacco, particularly wrapper, has helped the company maintain and even improve quality during these sometimes turbulent changes.

One of Gershel's biggest decisions was moving to Indonesian wrapper tobacco in the 1990s. He was concerned with the supply and quality of Cameroon wrapper and found the quality of Indonesian tobacco ever improving. He later championed the use of Habanos2000 from Central America.

-- JS

Litto and Ines Gomez

Owners

La Flor Dominicana

When Miami jeweler Litto Gomez was forced to the ground by a burglar, a loaded gun pressed against his head, he thought his life was over. He was spared, and left the business. "That guy changed my life," he says. That was 1993. One year later, he opened the tiny Los Libertadores cigar factory in the Dominican Republic with partner Ines Lorenzo, who later became his wife and changed her name to Lorenzo-Gomez. In 1996, they renamed their brand La Flor Dominicana, which is now made in a posh factory in Tamboril. La Flors are made with powerful Dominican tobacco grown on a company-owned farm in La Canela, and in late 2003 the company is slated to unveil its first Dominican puro, crowned with wrapper tobacco from that farm. Gomez runs production while Lorenzo-Gomez manages distribution in Miami. Each Monday and Friday, the 47-year-old Gomez can be found on an airplane, flying to and from work.

-- DS

Hendrik Kelner

CEO

Cidav Corp.

It's easy to understand why Hendrik "Henke" Kelner, the 56-year-old president of the Davidoff factory and the maker of Davidoff and Avo cigars, is considered a tobacco master. Born to a tobacco family in the Dominican Republic, Kelner has been in the tobacco business his entire life. "I have tobacco in my blood," he says. "Tobacco was my first job and I'm never going to work another." For Kelner, his love for the leaf rests somewhere between passion and obsession. From growing and harvesting tobacco to fermenting and aging, Kelner is deeply involved with every aspect of cigar making. And, in what Kelner describes as a "market of innovation," a little passion and obsession are key to growing great tobacco and creating world-class cigars. His latest innovation is the Davidoff Limited Edition, made with a 1996 Dominican wrapper he's perfected over the last several years.

-- Mike Marsh

Robert Levin

President

Holt's Cigar Holdings

Robert Levin, 56, is another well-known figure in the cigar business with a lifetime of experience. His parents ran a retail cigar business from the time he was a child. Levin entered the cigar business full-time in 1972. His business today includes two Holt's Cigar stores in Philadelphia, significant wholesale and catalog operations, and the well-regarded Ashton cigar, which was launched in 1985 and has been made by Tabacalera A. Fuente y Cia. in the Dominican Republic since 1988. While Levin is worried about the ongoing antitobacco campaigns, he says that the cigar business is in good shape, and he has a strong base of consumers who love to smoke cigars. He fondly remembers the boom years of the mid-'90s when his business was "doubling and tripling."

-- GM

Rick Meerapfel

Managing Director

M. Meerapfel Söhne

Rick Meerapfel has a lot to live up to as a tobacco man -- his father, Heller, bought a great portion of the Cuban tobacco crop just after the revolution. Rick, 50, took it as a challenge, and in the last seven years has become a world force in Central African wrapper tobacco. Among his clients are some of the biggest names in cigars, including Arturo Fuente and General Cigar. His Sumatra-seed tobacco is some of the finest, richest wrapper grown outside of Cuba's Vuelta Abajo, where Meerapfel spent many years in the late 1970s and early '80s learning the "Cuban way" of doing things.

Each year, Meerapfel says, the quality of Central African tobacco improves. He has operations in both Cameroon and the Central African Republic, and the companies he chairs, Cetac Central Africa and Cetac Cameroon, employ nearly 10,000 people. "This means a lot to Africans," says Meerapfel, whose companies are partly owned by locals. "It proves that they can do it on their own. I am very proud."

-- JS

Benjamin Menendez

Senior V.P. of Premium Cigars

Altadis U.S.A. Inc.

The date, says Benjamin Menendez, is "like a brand that cattle have." November 26, 1960. "I went to the airport and left Cuba. I left with my wife, three kids and $7 in my pocket," he says. Two months earlier, doomsday for Cuba's cigarmakers, Fidel Castro's troops took over Cuba's cigar and tobacco industries. The gem in his stolen crown was the mighty Montecristo and H. Upmann brands, owned by Benjamin's father, Alonso Menendez, and his partner, Pepe Garcia. Today, a bespectacled 66-year-old with a wide smile and an endless supply of stories, Benjamin Menendez has spent his life at the helm of some of the biggest cigar brands the world has ever known. Starting with Montecristos in Cuba, he moved on to make Montecruz and Don Diego in the Canary Islands, Macanudo in Jamaica and now, coming full circle, Montecristos in the Dominican Republic. True cigar aristocracy, "Benji," as he is known to nearly everyone, never stopped traveling.

-- DS

Eric Newman

President

J.C. Newman Cigar Co.

As part of the third generation to work in the family business, Eric Newman, 54, president of J.C. Newman Cigar Co., must follow what he calls the perseverance of the generations preceding him. Started in 1895 by his grandfather, J.C. Newman Cigar Co. was just one of 42,000 licensed cigar manufacturers in the United States. One hundred and seven years later, J.C. Newman Cigar remains the only American cigar company from that era still owned and operated by the original family. "There's nothing in business that's come around that my grandfather and father hadn't seen," said Newman, who has worked within the family business since 1972. "It's up to my brother [Bobby] and myself to foster relationships in this industry for this company to continue to succeed."

-- Mark Weissenberger

Robert Newman

Executive Vice President

J.C. Newman Cigar Co.

For Robert Newman, the winter of 1986 was one that would make or break his family. Along with his brother Eric, and spearheaded by his then-70-year-old father, Stanford, the three Newmans had leveraged to buy out 11 other family members for ownership of J.C. Newman Cigar Co. The majority of their assets, including Stanford's home, was used as collateral in the high-risk deal. But for Robert, the transaction allowed him to witness his father's savvy business skills, as well as the confidence shown in himself and his brother during such a precarious venture. Today, family-operated J.C. Newman Cigar owns such brands as Diamond Crown, Cuesta-Rey and La Unica; and Robert, 51, serves as the company's executive vice president.

-- MW

Angel Daniel Núñez

Executive V.P., Mfg. and Tobacco

General Cigar

Daniel Núñez, 51, has spent 30 years with General Cigar, during which time he has become one of the most well-rounded men in the cigar industry, learning and mastering all aspects of cigar making. In 1972, he was in the fields, experimenting with wrapper grown in the Dominican Republic. From there he learned the process of sorting and aging tobacco and then, under the legendary Ramón Cifuentes, the art of manufacturing cigars. In the early '90s, Núñez learned to purchase tobacco, and today he is General's executive vice president of manufacturing and tobacco. Occupying one of the most influential positions at General, he oversees the company's entire cigar-making operation, from the fields in Connecticut and the Dominican Republic to the factories producing General's vast catalog of cigars.

-- MM

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