Frank Llaneza
Encyclopedia
Frank Llaneza was a tobacco
blender and former executive of Villazon & Co. who is regarded as a pioneer in the resurgence of the premium cigar
industry at the end of the 20th Century. Llaneza is best known for the creation and manufacture of a number of popular cigar brands in the years after the 1962 Cuban Embargo
, including Hoyo de Monterrey, Punch
, Bolivar
, and Siglo.
. His father, José Llaneza, was a cigar maker who produced a brand in Ybor City known as Pancho Arango. An 11-month long strike
of tobacco workers bankrupted many of Tampa's cigar makers, however, including Frank's father. In the aftermath, the elder Llaneza went to work for the company of Schwab-Davis, one of the city's biggest cigar manufacturers as makers of the popular brand Rey del Rey.
During his time as a manager at Schwab-Davis, Frank's father launched another company with his three former business partners called José Arango. When Schwab-Davis was later sold to a company called Gradiaz-Annis, a forerunner of General Cigar Co., the elder Llaneza left the company's employ to devote himself full-time to his own new enterprise.
During his school years, Frank worked part time in his father's factory, beginning work at age 15. Frank attended and graduated Jesuit High School in Tampa, from which he graduated in 1936.
leaf, helping to sort it for size, color, and quality.
With World War II
on the horizon, Llaneza joined the United States Coast Guard
in 1940. He served in the Gulf of Mexico
and the North Atlantic through the end of the war in 1945.
Following conclusion of the war, Llaneza returned to work in his father's factory as a tobacco selector before moving to become a foreman
supervising the torcedores
(cigar rollers). Llaneza used the savings he had accumulated to buy a stake in the company, which eventually was held by his father, his brother Joe, and himself. Joe Llaneza ran the Villazon front office and Frank the factory, with the elder Llaneza in charge of picking and packing in the shipping department.
In 1947, Llaneza went to Cuba
to learn the leaf trade as an assistant to José Arango's leaf buyer there, José Suarez. Suarez suddenly died during Llaneza's stay, however, leaving the young Frank responsible for buying all the tobacco needed by the factory. It was as a leaf buyer that Frank Llaneza became acquainted with many who would later become giant figures in the cigar industry, including Angel Oliva of Oliva Tobacco Co. and Joe Cullman, father of Joe Cullman III of Philip Morris
and Edgar Cullman, the future head of General Cigar Co.
Despite the fact that the American economy underwent a boom in the post-war years, as consumers were suddenly able to buy unlimited quantities of products formerly subjected to wartime rationing
, the American cigar industry was hard hit by the sudden release of hundreds of millions of stockpiled cigars onto the market by the United States government. This policy of dumping
finished cigars by the government continued into 1948. With cigars easily available at less than their cost of production, once again many small cigar firms based in Tampa were bankrupted
, with José Arango among the victims.
from the Preferred Havana Company, including the brands Flor del Mundo, Bances, and Lord Beaconfield, among others.
Villazon specialized for a time in the manufacture of inexpensive private label
cigars for nightclubs
in New York City
and elsewhere, barely managing to make ends meet on the low profit margins this particular segment of the business allowed. Approximately 45 or 50 people were employed in the company's Tampa factory.
Together with Angel Oliva, Sr., Frank Llaneza was one of the pioneers in the farming of cigar tobacco in Central America
. He later recalled:
In 1955, Joe Cullman III, a vice president of tobacco giant Philip Morris, approached the Llaneza brothers and asked them to manufacture Benson & Hedges
cigars on behalf of the company, with Frank given approval to select and blend the tobacco used in the brand's products. This proved to be a major turning point in the company's fortunes.
In 1956, Karl Cuesta sold Villazon his cigar making operation and its brands, El Rey del Mundo and Flor de A. Allones, so that Cuesta could concentrate on far more lucrative cigarette
manufacturing operations.
Villazon also introduced its own self-named brand in this period. Villazon's production of cigars slowly grew throughout the 1950s, rising from 10,000 or 15,000 cigars a day to about 25,000 a day when the decade drew to a close.
The business shifted somewhat late in the 1950s when Philip Morris decided to exit the cigar business. Excess capacity at Villazon was dedicated to the expansion of the Bances brand, the company's biggest seller.
Villazon continued to purchase Cuban tobacco after the 1959 revolution
, only terminating its purchases as the result of an imposition of an American trade embargo established early in 1962.
Initially Villazon, with its large stock of available Havana tobacco, was able to license the name Flor de Palacio from its owner, Fernando Palacio, who only later relented by selling the Hoyo de Monterrey, Belinda, and Punch brands to Villazon.
In 1964, with the government of Honduras
actively promoting the expansion of the country's tobacco-growing industry, Llaneza established another company called Honduras-American Tobacco S.A. (HATSA). Initially a partnership with a man named Enrique Rivera, Llaneza eventually became the sole owner when Rivera left the business. Beginning with a daily production of between 10,000 and 15,0000 cigars, the company was the first tobacco factory in Danlí, today a major center of the industry.
Due to lower labor costs, difficulty in finding American rollers, and proximity to the raw materials, during the decade of the 1960s Villazon shifted its hand rolled cigar production to Honduras, retaining only a skeleton production facility in Tampa to make special sizes for an elite clientele, such as Red Auerbach
of the Boston Celtics
and Art Rooney
of the Pittsburg Steelers.
With the cigar business in a steady state of decline in the 1970s and 1980s, Villazon purchased facilities which its competitors were abandoning, such as a larger factory space in Tampa, as well as equipment from manufacturers leaving the industry. The company's American operation was thereby expanded, dedicated to making short filler cigars by machine.
Villazon's Honduran handmade cigars were differentiated from the industry, however, as Frank Llaneza recalled in a 1999 interview:
, to the General Cigar Co. for millions of dollars.
By the end of the 1990s, the Villazon division of General Cigar was making upwards of 125,000 cigars a day, some 32 to 33 million a year, in its manufacturing facilities in Cofradia
and Danlí. Many of these were produced for sale via mailorder marketing giant J.R. Tobacco, today a division of Altadis
, owned by Imperial Tobacco
.
Llaneza was remembered by his peers as one of the supreme figures of the cigar industry. ""He was one of the grandmasters of the industry, like you would consider in chess
," John Oliva of the Oliva Tobacco Company recalled at the time of his death.
Tobacco
Tobacco is an agricultural product processed from the leaves of plants in the genus Nicotiana. It can be consumed, used as a pesticide and, in the form of nicotine tartrate, used in some medicines...
blender and former executive of Villazon & Co. who is regarded as a pioneer in the resurgence of the premium cigar
Cigar
A cigar is a tightly-rolled bundle of dried and fermented tobacco that is ignited so that its smoke may be drawn into the mouth. Cigar tobacco is grown in significant quantities in Brazil, Cameroon, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Honduras, Indonesia, Mexico, Nicaragua, Philippines, and the Eastern...
industry at the end of the 20th Century. Llaneza is best known for the creation and manufacture of a number of popular cigar brands in the years after the 1962 Cuban Embargo
United States embargo against Cuba
The United States embargo against Cuba is a commercial, economic, and financial embargo partially imposed on Cuba in October 1960...
, including Hoyo de Monterrey, Punch
Punch (cigar brand)
Punch is the name of two brands of cigars, one produced on the island of Cuba for Habanos SA, the Cuban state-owned tobacco company, and the other produced in Honduras for General Cigar Company, now a subsidiary of Swedish Match.- History :...
, Bolivar
Bolivar (cigar brand)
Bolívar is the name of two brands of premium cigar, one produced on the island of Cuba for Habanos SA, the Cuban state-owned tobacco company, and the other produced in the Dominican Republic from Dominican and Nicaraguan tobacco for General Cigar Company, which is today a subsidiary of Swedish Match...
, and Siglo.
Early years
Frank Llaneza was born on March 9, 1920 in Tampa, FloridaTampa, Florida
Tampa is a city in the U.S. state of Florida. It serves as the county seat for Hillsborough County. Tampa is located on the west coast of Florida. The population of Tampa in 2010 was 335,709....
. His father, José Llaneza, was a cigar maker who produced a brand in Ybor City known as Pancho Arango. An 11-month long strike
Strike action
Strike action, also called labour strike, on strike, greve , or simply strike, is a work stoppage caused by the mass refusal of employees to work. A strike usually takes place in response to employee grievances. Strikes became important during the industrial revolution, when mass labour became...
of tobacco workers bankrupted many of Tampa's cigar makers, however, including Frank's father. In the aftermath, the elder Llaneza went to work for the company of Schwab-Davis, one of the city's biggest cigar manufacturers as makers of the popular brand Rey del Rey.
During his time as a manager at Schwab-Davis, Frank's father launched another company with his three former business partners called José Arango. When Schwab-Davis was later sold to a company called Gradiaz-Annis, a forerunner of General Cigar Co., the elder Llaneza left the company's employ to devote himself full-time to his own new enterprise.
During his school years, Frank worked part time in his father's factory, beginning work at age 15. Frank attended and graduated Jesuit High School in Tampa, from which he graduated in 1936.
Early career
Following graduation from high school, Frank Llaneza went to work in the cigar industry full-time beginning at his father's factory as an apprentice selector of tobaccoTobacco
Tobacco is an agricultural product processed from the leaves of plants in the genus Nicotiana. It can be consumed, used as a pesticide and, in the form of nicotine tartrate, used in some medicines...
leaf, helping to sort it for size, color, and quality.
With World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
on the horizon, Llaneza joined the United States Coast Guard
United States Coast Guard
The United States Coast Guard is a branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven U.S. uniformed services. The Coast Guard is a maritime, military, multi-mission service unique among the military branches for having a maritime law enforcement mission and a federal regulatory agency...
in 1940. He served in the Gulf of Mexico
Gulf of Mexico
The Gulf of Mexico is a partially landlocked ocean basin largely surrounded by the North American continent and the island of Cuba. It is bounded on the northeast, north and northwest by the Gulf Coast of the United States, on the southwest and south by Mexico, and on the southeast by Cuba. In...
and the North Atlantic through the end of the war in 1945.
Following conclusion of the war, Llaneza returned to work in his father's factory as a tobacco selector before moving to become a foreman
Foreman
Foreman may refer to:* Construction foreman, the worker or tradesman who is in charge of the construction crew* Foreman of Signals, the most highly qualified non-commissioned signal equipment managers and Incorporated Engineers in the Royal Corps of Signals...
supervising the torcedores
Torcedor
A torcedor is a cigar roller. Since the Cuban Revolution, the majority of Cuban torcedores are women and referred to as a torcedora .-References:...
(cigar rollers). Llaneza used the savings he had accumulated to buy a stake in the company, which eventually was held by his father, his brother Joe, and himself. Joe Llaneza ran the Villazon front office and Frank the factory, with the elder Llaneza in charge of picking and packing in the shipping department.
In 1947, Llaneza went to Cuba
Cuba
The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...
to learn the leaf trade as an assistant to José Arango's leaf buyer there, José Suarez. Suarez suddenly died during Llaneza's stay, however, leaving the young Frank responsible for buying all the tobacco needed by the factory. It was as a leaf buyer that Frank Llaneza became acquainted with many who would later become giant figures in the cigar industry, including Angel Oliva of Oliva Tobacco Co. and Joe Cullman, father of Joe Cullman III of Philip Morris
Philip Morris
- Philip/Phillip Morris :*Altria Group, conglomerate company previously known as Philip Morris Companies Inc., named after the 19th century tobacconist**Philip Morris USA, tobacco company wholly owned by Altria Group...
and Edgar Cullman, the future head of General Cigar Co.
Despite the fact that the American economy underwent a boom in the post-war years, as consumers were suddenly able to buy unlimited quantities of products formerly subjected to wartime rationing
Rationing
Rationing is the controlled distribution of scarce resources, goods, or services. Rationing controls the size of the ration, one's allotted portion of the resources being distributed on a particular day or at a particular time.- In economics :...
, the American cigar industry was hard hit by the sudden release of hundreds of millions of stockpiled cigars onto the market by the United States government. This policy of dumping
Dumping (pricing policy)
In economics, "dumping" is any kind of predatory pricing, especially in the context of international trade. It occurs when manufacturers export a product to another country at a price either below the price charged in its home market, or in quantities that cannot be explained through normal market...
finished cigars by the government continued into 1948. With cigars easily available at less than their cost of production, once again many small cigar firms based in Tampa were bankrupted
Bankruptcy
Bankruptcy is a legal status of an insolvent person or an organisation, that is, one that cannot repay the debts owed to creditors. In most jurisdictions bankruptcy is imposed by a court order, often initiated by the debtor....
, with José Arango among the victims.
Establishment of Villazon & Co.
The José Arango company was reorganized under bankruptcy under a new name, Villazon and Company. Together Frank and his older brother, Joe, began making inexpensive machine-made cigars, carving out a market niche in which they were able to compete with larger firms. Villazon soon acquired a set of trademarksTrademark
A trademark, trade mark, or trade-mark is a distinctive sign or indicator used by an individual, business organization, or other legal entity to identify that the products or services to consumers with which the trademark appears originate from a unique source, and to distinguish its products or...
from the Preferred Havana Company, including the brands Flor del Mundo, Bances, and Lord Beaconfield, among others.
Villazon specialized for a time in the manufacture of inexpensive private label
Private label
Private label products or services are typically those manufactured or provided by one company for offer under another company's brand. Private label goods and services are available in a wide range of industries from food to cosmetics to web hosting...
cigars for nightclubs
Nightclub
A nightclub is an entertainment venue which usually operates late into the night...
in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
and elsewhere, barely managing to make ends meet on the low profit margins this particular segment of the business allowed. Approximately 45 or 50 people were employed in the company's Tampa factory.
Together with Angel Oliva, Sr., Frank Llaneza was one of the pioneers in the farming of cigar tobacco in Central America
Central America
Central America is the central geographic region of the Americas. It is the southernmost, isthmian portion of the North American continent, which connects with South America on the southeast. When considered part of the unified continental model, it is considered a subcontinent...
. He later recalled:
"Angel Oliva and I took the first Cuban-seed tobaccos to JalapaJalapa* Xalapa, Veracruz* Jalapa, Baja California* Jalapa, Guerrero* In the state of Oaxaca:** Santa María Jalapa del Marqués** San Felipe Jalapa de Díaz** Jalapa del Valle* Jalapa, Tabasco...
in NicaraguaNicaraguaNicaragua is the largest country in the Central American American isthmus, bordered by Honduras to the north and Costa Rica to the south. The country is situated between 11 and 14 degrees north of the Equator in the Northern Hemisphere, which places it entirely within the tropics. The Pacific Ocean...
in 1954. By the end of the 1950s, he took some of the tobacco from Nicaragua back to Cuba to some of the farmers there so they could make cigars with it and smoke it just to see the possibilities of tobacco from Nicaragua. It was primitive in Jalapa back in those days. You couldn't get there. There was no road. You had to cross two rivers and there were no bridges. But after that, Mr. Oliva bought farms all over that area and built barns. We were finally able to use that tobacco as we needed it after we ran out of Cuban tobacco. At the time, there wasn't anything that even resembled Cuban tobacco anywhere else in the world."
In 1955, Joe Cullman III, a vice president of tobacco giant Philip Morris, approached the Llaneza brothers and asked them to manufacture Benson & Hedges
Benson & Hedges
Benson & Hedges is a British brand of cigarettes owned by the Gallaher Group, which became a subsidiary of Japan Tobacco in 2007. They are registered in Old Bond Street in London, and are manufactured in Lisnafillen, Ballymena, Northern Ireland for the UK and Irish markets.-History:Benson & Hedges...
cigars on behalf of the company, with Frank given approval to select and blend the tobacco used in the brand's products. This proved to be a major turning point in the company's fortunes.
In 1956, Karl Cuesta sold Villazon his cigar making operation and its brands, El Rey del Mundo and Flor de A. Allones, so that Cuesta could concentrate on far more lucrative cigarette
Cigarette
A cigarette is a small roll of finely cut tobacco leaves wrapped in a cylinder of thin paper for smoking. The cigarette is ignited at one end and allowed to smoulder; its smoke is inhaled from the other end, which is held in or to the mouth and in some cases a cigarette holder may be used as well...
manufacturing operations.
Villazon also introduced its own self-named brand in this period. Villazon's production of cigars slowly grew throughout the 1950s, rising from 10,000 or 15,000 cigars a day to about 25,000 a day when the decade drew to a close.
The business shifted somewhat late in the 1950s when Philip Morris decided to exit the cigar business. Excess capacity at Villazon was dedicated to the expansion of the Bances brand, the company's biggest seller.
Villazon continued to purchase Cuban tobacco after the 1959 revolution
Cuban Revolution
The Cuban Revolution was an armed revolt by Fidel Castro's 26th of July Movement against the regime of Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista between 1953 and 1959. Batista was finally ousted on 1 January 1959, and was replaced by a revolutionary government led by Castro...
, only terminating its purchases as the result of an imposition of an American trade embargo established early in 1962.
The embargo years
An embargo on Cuban products had been correctly anticipated by Angel Oliva, with whom Frank Llaneza worked closely, who managed to export over 2 million pounds of tobacco in the last legal shipment from the island. The private owners of the brand names of the nationalized Cuban cigar industry initially believed that the situation was temporary.Initially Villazon, with its large stock of available Havana tobacco, was able to license the name Flor de Palacio from its owner, Fernando Palacio, who only later relented by selling the Hoyo de Monterrey, Belinda, and Punch brands to Villazon.
In 1964, with the government of Honduras
Honduras
Honduras is a republic in Central America. It was previously known as Spanish Honduras to differentiate it from British Honduras, which became the modern-day state of Belize...
actively promoting the expansion of the country's tobacco-growing industry, Llaneza established another company called Honduras-American Tobacco S.A. (HATSA). Initially a partnership with a man named Enrique Rivera, Llaneza eventually became the sole owner when Rivera left the business. Beginning with a daily production of between 10,000 and 15,0000 cigars, the company was the first tobacco factory in Danlí, today a major center of the industry.
Due to lower labor costs, difficulty in finding American rollers, and proximity to the raw materials, during the decade of the 1960s Villazon shifted its hand rolled cigar production to Honduras, retaining only a skeleton production facility in Tampa to make special sizes for an elite clientele, such as Red Auerbach
Red Auerbach
Arnold Jacob "Red" Auerbach was an American basketball coach of the Washington Capitols, the Tri-Cities Blackhawks and the Boston Celtics. After he retired from coaching, he served as president and front office executive of the Celtics until his death...
of the Boston Celtics
Boston Celtics
The Boston Celtics are a National Basketball Association team based in Boston, Massachusetts. They play in the Atlantic Division of the Eastern Conference. Founded in 1946, the team is currently owned by Boston Basketball Partners LLC. The Celtics play their home games at the TD Garden, which...
and Art Rooney
Art Rooney
Arthur Joseph "Art" Rooney, Sr. , often referred to as "The Chief", was the founding owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers American football franchise in the National Football League.-Family history:...
of the Pittsburg Steelers.
With the cigar business in a steady state of decline in the 1970s and 1980s, Villazon purchased facilities which its competitors were abandoning, such as a larger factory space in Tampa, as well as equipment from manufacturers leaving the industry. The company's American operation was thereby expanded, dedicated to making short filler cigars by machine.
Villazon's Honduran handmade cigars were differentiated from the industry, however, as Frank Llaneza recalled in a 1999 interview:
"The majority of the population wanted mild cigars and everybody in the cigar business thought that by producing mild cigars you could start more cigarette smokers to start smoking cigars. That was the logic. But we were making a heavier, fuller-bodied cigar.... A lot of people who preferred stronger cigars were still smoking Cuban cigars when they could get them. I think a lot of those smokers, because of the rising prices and because of the deteriorating quality in Cuba, started smoking our cigars. And that is when we started seeing a big jump in the sales."
Sale of Villazon to General Cigar
Llaneza sold Villazon in 1996, during the height of the cigar boomCigar boom
The Cigar Boom is the name given to the resurgence of cigar consumption in the United States during the years of the middle 1990s. Beginning in 1992, imports and sales of premium cigars began to rise dramatically and manufacturers struggled to keep up with demand, leading to industry-wide shortages...
, to the General Cigar Co. for millions of dollars.
By the end of the 1990s, the Villazon division of General Cigar was making upwards of 125,000 cigars a day, some 32 to 33 million a year, in its manufacturing facilities in Cofradia
Cofradia
Cofradia is a town in northwestern Honduras, in the Naco Valley, 24 km from the city of San Pedro Sula.- Physical and political geography :The limits of Cofradia are:* To the north, the Sierra del Merendón* To the south, the river Chamelecon...
and Danlí. Many of these were produced for sale via mailorder marketing giant J.R. Tobacco, today a division of Altadis
Altadis
Altadis is a multinational purveyor and manufacturer of cigarettes, tobacco and cigars. Altadis was formed via a 1999 merger between Tabacalera, the former Spanish tobacco monopoly and SEITA, the former French tobacco monopoly...
, owned by Imperial Tobacco
Imperial Tobacco
Imperial Tobacco is a global tobacco company headquartered in Bristol, United Kingdom. It is the world’s fourth-largest cigarette company measured by market share , and the world's largest producer of cigars, fine-cut tobacco and tobacco papers...
.
Work with Altadis
Late in his life, Llaneza returned from semi-retirement to the cigar business, creating new brands and helping to supervise Nicaraguan operations for the cigar making giant Altadis. Among those brands created in this last stage of his career included Siglo and the eponymous Frank Llaneza 1961 brand.Death and legacy
Frank Llaneza died March 18, 2010, of heart failure, just two weeks after having celebrated his 90th birthday. Llaneza was survived by his wife, Diane, and four daughters. One of these women, Carol Jean Llaneza, followed in the footsteps of her father and grandfather into the cigar business.Llaneza was remembered by his peers as one of the supreme figures of the cigar industry. ""He was one of the grandmasters of the industry, like you would consider in chess
Chess
Chess is a two-player board game played on a chessboard, a square-checkered board with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. It is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide at home, in clubs, online, by correspondence, and in tournaments.Each player...
," John Oliva of the Oliva Tobacco Company recalled at the time of his death.
See also
- cigarCigarA cigar is a tightly-rolled bundle of dried and fermented tobacco that is ignited so that its smoke may be drawn into the mouth. Cigar tobacco is grown in significant quantities in Brazil, Cameroon, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Honduras, Indonesia, Mexico, Nicaragua, Philippines, and the Eastern...