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Home > What's New > Fathers and Sons, Part 2
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Fathers and Sons, Part 2
Posted: Monday, November 13, 2006 (Continued)
When the Olivas first began making cigars, they tried to emulate the popular brands of the day,
putting light-colored Connecticut-seed wrappers around a mix of Dominican and Central American
tobaccos. They failed to find an appreciative audience.
Salvation came from the family's disdain for taking on debt: the company turned to Gilberto's
large inventory of aged Nicaraguan tobaccos and began making puros. The change worked well, as
Americans were growing more enamored with rich Nicaraguan tobacco leaf.
As a young man, Jose didn't understand the value of having bales of tobacco piling up in
inventory, not making money. "I, being very young, wanted to see additional money put into
marketing, additional money put into packaging. He wanted it all to go into tobacco," he says.
"There was a tremendous amount of what I thought I knew."
Hendrik + Henry Kelner
It's early in the afternoon on a sunny Monday in Santiago, Dominican Republic. Lunchtime is over,
and business is set to move into the spacious corner office of the boss, Hendrik Kelner. Cigars
are lit, and he and his son sit down in front of an ashtray that can hold a dozen cigars. On the
smoking agenda for the afternoon is a pair of Zino Platinum cigars, the Barrel and the Grand
Master, plus a new size that may end up at the upcoming Retail Tobacco Dealers of America trade
show, five weeks away.
Hendrik (left) and Henry Kelner
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Hendrik, 60, is a tobacco man by blood, and his 33-year-old son is no different. How long has he
worked with his dad? "All my life," says Kelner Jr., who goes by the nickname Henry. "In the '80s,
I worked during the summer, in the '90s, I worked part-time, and since 1993, I work full-time."
Today, the father oversees the three cigar factories that comprise the entire operation that makes
Davidoff, Avo and a host of other cigars, while the son is manager of Cigars Davidoff, the factory
where Davidoffs are rolled.
The Kelners come from a long line of tobacco men. "It's a tradition of the family," says the elder
Kelner. "My father [Klass] worked in tobacco. He started very young in Amsterdam, and came to the
Dominican Republic in 1933. My father never had a cigar factory—the Kelners traditionally worked
in raw materials, in Brazil, Paraguay, Indonesia and the Dominican Republic."
Hendrik Sr., known to the cigar world as Henke, has one of the most sophisticated palates in the
industry. A veritable tobacco scientist, he can speak for entire afternoons about tobacco and
rhapsodize at great length about the characteristics of whatever he is smoking.
"We always have lunch in the factory," says Henke. "After lunch, we try to have quiet, and it's a
pleasure because we take our cigars and we say, 'What do you think about the taste? The
aftertaste?' We have coffee and Cognac, and we compare. And when we agree, we are happy."
Cigar smoking is work for Henke, who takes detailed notes on the cigars and how they stimulate the
various flavor receptors on the tongue—salty, sweet, bitter and sour. "We have a chart," he says,
describing the lengthy process he, his son and close associate Eladio Diaz go through when testing
cigars. "The blend for us is not a formula.
"Normally when I smoke, it's my job," he says in his heavily accented English. "Sometimes, I smoke
for pleasure. When I really like a cigar, after I smoke half, I say, 'This half of the cigar is
for pleasure. No writing, no talking, just 'conjo, que buelo esta cigar,'" he says.
His son, a smaller, quieter version of Kelner, is humbled to follow in his father's footsteps.
"I'm not as gifted as my father in terms of palate," he says. "I still have a long way to go."
Kelner praises his son's progress in the trade. "He learns fast, but in the cigar business you
learn every day."
Stanford, Eric + Bobby Newman
Sometimes being the son of the boss means an easier path to the top of the company, but Stanford
Newman had a challenge working for his father. Stanford, 90, the chairman of J.C. Newman Cigar
Co., spent most of his career working in the large shadow of his domineering father, Julius
Newman, who second-guessed nearly every move his son made until his death.
Bobby (left), Stanford and Eric Newman
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J.C. stands for Julius Caesar, and the man more than lived up to his name. (An èmigrè from
Hungary, he chose the middle name himself, when he registered to vote in the United States.) J.C.
was a self-made man who created a tiny cigar company in 1895 with $50 he borrowed from his family
and an order for 500 cigars from the local grocer. The company was a one-man cigar factory,
operating out of a barn behind the family home near Cleveland. At the time it was one of 42,000
cigar factories in the United States, and one of 300 in Cleveland alone.
J.C. Newman Cigar Co. survived the post-1950s industry fallout that caused most of America's small
cigar companies to close, consolidate or move offshore. While U.S. cigar factories are rare today,
the firm, now headquartered in Tampa, still makes cigars by machine in the upper floors of its
headquarters, as well as serving as the U.S. distribution arm for the cigars made by hand by
Tabacalera A. Fuente y Cia., which include the Cuesta-Rey and Diamond Crown brands owned by the
Newmans. Stanford works alongside his sons: Eric, 58, is the company president and Bobby, 55, is
executive vice president.
Back in 1914, J.C. Newman was making successful brands such as the five-cent Judge Wright, and the
company owned the largest cigar factory in Cleveland. In 1934, Stanford began working for his
father as the downtown Cleveland salesman, and three years later he joined the company full-time.
He had reservations.
"If I could have found a job working for any other place, I wouldn't have worked for him. It was
much too difficult," says Stanford, sitting in his conference room in Tampa. "My father was short,
and he had a Napoleonic complex. He wanted it his way."
When Stanford was a child, his father had a habit of bringing a cane to dinner and pounding it to
keep order and when he wanted attention. As an adult, Stanford discovered that J.C. could be just
as demanding at the office.
"He used to go at six in the morning to the post office and read the mail. And then he would write
on the bottom of the letters how I should write back," said Stanford. "He thought I never grew
up."
The examples of J.C. meddling with Stanford's authority at the company are legion. In 1948,
Stanford came out with a five-cent cigar called Cameo Bouquet. He and his father made a sales
call, resulting in a deal to move 500,000 of the cigars a week to one account. Stanford left the
room, and J.C. told the buyer that he was raising the price of Cameo cigars by one cent. When
Stanford returned, the buyer cancelled the order. Other prospective buyers followed suit when J.C.
tried the same tactic. The surprise price hike ended up costing the company half the Cameo
business.
Soon after, at a time when cigar-making machines were in short supply, Stanford purchased 10 or
them, only to have his father trade them for some Puerto Rican tobacco while he was out of town.
When packed, the tobacco curled, which made lumps in the cigars. To deal with the new tobacco,
Stanford bought a conveyor belt and had workers straighten the tobacco and put it in large cases,
rather than into piles. When he returned from another trip, the cases were gone; his father had
ordered the tobacco unpacked and put back into piles, undoing Stanford's work.
In 1958, Julius died, leaving the company to Stanford, his younger son, Millard, and the Newman
family. As the decades went on, the cigar market shrunk and the family business suffered, which
resulted in tension within the family.
"We had 14 other relatives [in the business]. It was very difficult. The cigar industry was going
down, and our sales were going down," says Bobby. "In 1985, Eric and I went to Dad and said either
we've got to buy our relatives out or they have to buy us out."
Stanford and his sons chose the former strategy, and the three were then in control. Stanford made
it a point to manage differently than his dad had.
"I wanted to give responsibility to my sons," says Stanford. "I wanted them to do things
themselves."
The next generation is already making an impact on the family business. "I've been in the business
since I was nine," says Drew Newman, Eric's 25-year-old son. Displaying a knack for computers,
Drew helped create the popular Fuente and Newman Web site, cigarfamily.com, when he was 14. "I
told my father we should have a Web site," he says. "Dad said, 'What's a Web site?'" Drew is now
in law school at American University, and eventually intends to join the company. He even designed
the "M"-shaped Diamond Crown Maximus box, which has a radical design that doesn't quite sit right
with Stanford.
"I didn't think much of the idea," he says simply, as his sons laugh.
Stanford is still active in the business. During a tour of the company's small cigar-making
operations upstairs, he gives a freshly made cigar a squeeze, his personal way of draw-testing.
"Dad goes by the feel," says Eric, a touch of wonder in his voice. "Bobby and I are the
technicians of the business, managers of the business—Dad is still the visionary."
Nestor Plasencia + Nestor Plasencia Jr.
Nestor Plasencia Sr. (left) and Nestor Jr.
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Like a pair of good basketball players, the Plasencias are constantly in motion. "We're about to
spread out," says Nestor Jr., 31, speaking during his regular Monday morning sit-down with his
father in Nicaragua. The two run the Plasencia tobacco and cigar-making empire, which stretches
across Nicaragua and Honduras. They meet each Monday for an hour or two to strategize for the
week, then scatter across the region. One might go to the fields in Jalapa, where the wrapper leaf
is smooth and rich, while the other might head to Danlí, Honduras, home to one of the company's
five cigar factories, or to Ocotál, Nicaragua, where the Plasencias process one of the world's
largest collections of tobacco. The two are rarely in the same spot.
"We don't see each other during the weekdays," says Nestor Jr., "but on the weekends, Friday, we
get together and discuss what we did for the week."
It's not an easy schedule. The two are constantly on the road, beating up their vehicles over
roads that often have more bumps than the local economy. "I change my car every four years," says
Nestor Jr. His father changes every three.
The elder Plasencia, 56, is proud of his son. "I feel very good," he says. "I have the privilege
to have continuity in the business, the same way my father felt when he was working."
Nestor Jr. is the only one of three adult siblings to work with his father. His older brother,
Gustavo, is an interior designer and his older sister, Alina, is a dentist. (His younger brother,
Josè Luis, is only 13. "Maybe my younger brother will join us. We need some help," Nestor Jr.
says, showing the trademark Plasencia sense of humor.)
The elder Plasencia is a legend in the business. "Moving, moving, moving," is one of his favorite
sayings, often uttered after clapping his hands for emphasis as he chugs from one spot to the
next, showing off his remarkably broad business. He's admittedly antsy when standing still.
"Frustrated," he says in one of his compact, brusque answers, when asked how he feels when he's
not in motion. A workaholic, he does other business while his son answers questions during a joint
interview. "It's part of my personality," Nestor Sr. says with a smile. "I don't stay in one place
for too much time."
He churned out more than 30 million cigars a year during his busiest days of the cigar boom (most
of them brands made under contract for other companies) and has always been a big grower of
tobacco. In recent years, he switched from growing primarily filler tobacco to growing wrapper,
which is much more profitable. He plants tobacco on the volcanic island of Ometepe, Nicaragua, in
San Agustín, Honduras, as well as in the traditional areas of Central America.
The Plasencias are among the most successful tobacco men, but only 20 years ago business was quite
poor. Nestor Sr.'s crops were regularly ravaged by blue mold, and without tobacco to sell he had a
hard time making money. Plasencia likes to joke about a banker who financed his three businesses
in the mid-1980s, a stressful job to say the least. "I went to look for the banker at the bank,
and he wasn't there. He was in Houston, at the hospital, getting a triple bypass," says Plasencia.
A month later, the tobacco grower paid a visit. "He said, 'Every bypass had a name,' and each name
was one of my companies."
Business began to improve in 1990. "At that time, we started growing [tobacco] varieties that were
more resistant to blue mold, and Swisher decided to [have us] make Bering and La Primadora in
Honduras," says Nestor Sr. The cigar boom soon followed, and the Plasencias went from struggling
to surging.
Nestor Jr. is a born-and-bred tobacco man, like his father. "I started working every holiday when
I was a little kid, in the farms and factories," he says. Since he was seven years old, time off
from school meant it was time to work with dad. In 1998, out of school, he joined his father
full-time.
Nestor Jr. always knew this was the route he would take, even though his father never pushed him
into the tobacco business. "One of the things my father always told us—you need to do what you
like to be good. You have to put passion in it."
"It's a big example to follow," says the son of his father. "My dad is the guy I respect the most
in the tobacco industry. Every day is a learning experience."
Fernando León + Guillermo León
More than a century ago, Eduardo León Jimenes began making cigars in the Dominican Republic. The
firm he created in 1903 is the oldest cigarmaker in the Dominican Republic, and today its parent
company, Empresas León Jimenes, has annual sales of more than $600 million. Empresas León Jimenes
brews Presidente beer, owns a bank, makes cigarettes and rolls remarkable cigars. Eduardo's
descendants carry on the cigar tradition.
Fernando (right) and Guillermo León
| "Now, I'm in charge of the heritage," says Eduardo's grandson Guillermo, in his slow-cadenced
voice, which has a touch of gravel. "It's heavy on my shoulders." The 46-year-old León, a tall man
with chiseled good looks, runs La Aurora S.A., the parent company's cigar business, which includes
core brands Aurora and León Jimenes, plus popular new releases such as Aurora 100 Años and Aurora
1495. He's speaking on a quiet holiday in the Dominican Republic, sitting in his spacious office
inside the gleaming complex that is La Aurora in Santiago. Most conversations take place here
around a coffee table, which is surrounded by a large couch and chairs. To the left is a cabinet
of cigars, some dating back to the 1970s.
"I feel very proud, because I have someone who I can trust 100 percent because of his knowledge,
and who I know is going to guide me on the right track," says León. "That's an advantage."
His guide is his father, Fernando León Asensio, who ran Aurora with his three brothers. Although
the 84-year-old is officially retired from the cigar business, he still looms large over the
company's operations. "He comes in two or three times a week, and he goes to the farms still to
see the crops," says Guillermo, "and he still smokes five cigars a day." The smoking is not always
recreational. "Anything that he finds, he tells me right away. He's part of the tasting panel."
The elder León is a stately, white-haired gentleman who speaks in a crisp, booming baritone. His
father gave him an unusual introduction to the cigar business. "The first thing my father did to
expose me to the business as a youngster was to buy me a white linen suit, then take me out to the
fields just ready to be harvested. Then he asked me to walk across it several times so I could get
acquainted with the raw materials for cigar manufacturing," says Fernando León. "You can imagine
how my new linen suit looked at the end of the walk. I was never to forget the experience.
"No one can make a good tobacco man by imposing," says the elder León. "I really think it is a
matter of genetic heritage. This is a trade that cannot be truly loved unless one is born into it.
There are no institutions that I know of that you can attend and get a degree on this fascinating
world of tobacco."
The Leóns are not the only family business connected to La Aurora cigars—the company that
distributes its smokes, Miami Cigar & Co., has a father-son team, Nestor and Daniel Miranda,
involved in the business as well.
Guillermo is humbled by his family's history, and hopes to take the company further, as his father
and three uncles did before him.
"The four brothers," Guillermo says, "they worked as hard as my grandfather. It's like a ladder—my
grandfather started [climbing] and walked two steps. Then they did three steps, or four or five.
Now I have to keep going."
Father + Son Teams of the Past
Some of today's best-known cigar stars were trained by their fathers. Ernesto Perez-Carrillo, the
maker of La Gloria Cubana, worked for his father (of the same name). The younger Carrillo
originally wanted to be a drummer, but when his father nearly sold the business to the Gore
family, makers of Royal Jamaica, the son had a change of heart and decided he, too, wanted to be a
cigarmaker.
Frank Llaneza, the storied former owner of Villazon & Co. and one of the first producers of
gusty, strong cigars, inherited the Villazon cigar business (later acquired by General Cigar) from
his father, Josè Llaneza. "I had to do everything in the factory," says Llaneza, describing how
his father wanted him to learn each step of the cigar-making business before he retired.
Manuel Quesada, the maker of Fonseca, Cubita, Matasa 30th Anniversary and many other cigars
produced at Manufactura de Tabacos S.A., was trained by his father, the late Manuel Quesada Sr.
Nick Perdomo Jr. once worked in tandem with his father, Nick Sr., who oversaw Tabacalera Perdomo's
Nicaraguan cigar factory, while Nick Jr. managed things from the company's Miami Lakes, Florida,
headquarters. Perdomo Sr. died in 2004.
Theo Folz, the chief executive officer of Altadis U.S.A. Inc., was brought into the cigar business
by his father, Monte, who covered 19 states for Bayuk Cigar Co., the maker of Phillies cigars. "My
father," said Folz in a 2004 Cigar Aficionado story, "was the greatest salesman I've ever known."
Alfons Mayer, who once bought all of the tobacco used by General Cigar, followed in the footsteps
of his father, Alfons, a major buyer of Indonesian tobacco into Amsterdam. George Gershel, who
travels the world buying the tobacco for Altadis U.S.A., is also the son of a tobacco man.
Chris Topper learned how to run a cigar business working with his father, Frank, who died in 1997.
Today, he's the fourth generation to run Topper Cigar Co., which is 110 years old. Benjamin
Menendez, senior vice president of premium cigars for General Cigar, learned how to make cigars
working for his father, Alonso, who owned Cuba's Montecristo and H. Upmann brands. Benjamin's
brother, Felix, makes Dona Flor and other cigars in Brazil. Tobacco grower David Perez, president
of ASP Enterprises Inc., assumed the helm after the death of his father, Alfredo, in 2000, and
sells some of the world's most prized tobacco leaf.
With all of its complexities and secrets, the art of creating fine cigars and growing rich tobacco
is ideally suited to be passed down from father to son. The revival of premium cigar sales in the
1990s brought many a son who had sought out other ventures back into the family business, and
ensured that the secrets would be passed on, each son inheriting his forefathers' secrets and
trying to build on the success that came before, hoping to learn just a little more to pass on to
the next generation that might follow in those new footsteps.
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