336:"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."
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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."
145:(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.
308:
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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
405:
Frank
Llaneza died March 18, 2010, of heart failure, just two weeks after having celebrated his 90th birthday. Llaneza was survived by his wife, Diana, and four daughters. One of these women, Carol Jean Llaneza, followed in the footsteps of her father and grandfather into the cigar business.
301:(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
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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
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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
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During his time as a manager at Schwab-Davis, Llaneza'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
20:
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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
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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
176:, 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
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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
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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
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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
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In 1955, Joe Cullman III, a vice president of tobacco giant Philip Morris, approached the Llaneza brothers and asked them to manufacture
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Villazon's Honduran handmade cigars were differentiated from the industry, however, as Frank Llaneza recalled in a 1999 interview:
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Following conclusion of the war, Llaneza returned to work in his father's factory as a tobacco selector before moving to become a
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During his school years, Llaneza worked part-time in his father's factory, beginning work at age 15. He graduated from Tampa's
298:
270:, only terminating its purchases as the result of an imposition of an American trade embargo established early in 1962.
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actively promoting the expansion of the country's tobacco-growing industry, Llaneza established another company called
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from the Preferred Havana Company, including the brands Flor del Mundo, Bances, and Lord Beaconfield, among others.
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blender and former executive of Villazon & Co. who is regarded as a pioneer in the resurgence of the premium
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Llaneza was remembered by his peers as one of the supreme figures of the cigar industry. ""He was one of the
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Together with Angel Oliva, Sr., Frank Llaneza was one of the pioneers in the farming of cigar tobacco in
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96:, the elder Llaneza left the company's employ to devote himself full-time to his own new enterprise.
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Initially Villazon, with its large stock of available Havana tobacco, was able to license the name
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from its owner, Fernando Palacio, who only later relented by selling the Hoyo de Monterrey,
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Lew Rothman, "Frank Llaneza: The Master Blender and His Legacy of Exceptional Brands,"
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would later become giant figures in the cigar industry, including Angel Oliva of
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vol. 1, no. 1 (Winter 2004). Reprinted in J-R Cigar catalog 2011 #2, pp. 3-35.
417:," John Oliva of the Oliva Tobacco Company recalled at the time of his death.
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and DanlĂ. Many of these were produced for sale via mailorder marketing giant
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In 1956, Karl Cuesta sold Villazon his cigar making operation and its brands,
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75:. His father, José Llaneza, was a cigar maker who produced a brand in
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Villazon specialized for a time in the manufacture of inexpensive
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expanded, dedicated to making short filler cigars by machine.
530:"Cigar Hall-of-Famer Frank Llaneza Always Put Family First,"
251:, so that Cuesta could concentrate on far more lucrative
223:"Angel Oliva and I took the first Cuban-seed tobaccos to
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Llaneza sold Villazon in 1996, during the height of the
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Villazon continued to purchase Cuban tobacco after the
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leaf, helping to sort it for size, color, and quality.
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initially believed that the situation was temporary.
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United States Coast Guard personnel of World War II
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413:of the industry, like you would consider in
71:Frank Llaneza was born on March 9, 1920, in
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510:vol. 7, no. 2 (February 1999), pp. 84-99.
79:known as Pancho Arango. An 11-month-long
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305:, today a major center of the industry.
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169:, the future head of General Cigar Co.
30:(March 9, 1920 – March 18, 2010) was a
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621:American tobacco industry executives
134:through the end of the war in 1945.
188:Establishment of Villazon & Co.
122:on the horizon, Llaneza joined the
606:United States Coast Guard enlisted
601:Businesspeople from Tampa, Florida
505:"An Interview with Frank Llaneza,"
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626:Jesuit High School (Tampa) alumni
341:Sale of Villazon to General Cigar
293:In 1964, with the government of
290:, and Punch brands to Villazon.
299:Honduras-American Tobacco S.A.
1:
558:"Frank Llaneza, 1920-2010,"
349:Photo of Villazon & Co.
157:and Joe Cullman, father of
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255:manufacturing operations.
126:in 1940. He served in the
148:In 1947, Llaneza went to
124:United States Coast Guard
563:online, March 19, 2010.
372:, today a division of
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540:St. Petersburg Times,
359:General Cigar Company
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219:. He later recalled:
28:Frank Anthony Llaneza
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16:American businessman
323:Pittsburgh Steelers
238:Benson & Hedges
535:2010-08-15 at the
395:Frank Llaneza 1961
393:and the eponymous
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249:Flor de A. Allones
101:Jesuit High School
40:1962 Cuban Embargo
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508:Cigar Aficionado,
384:Work with Altadis
274:The embargo years
155:Oliva Tobacco Co.
94:General Cigar Co.
44:Hoyo de Monterrey
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561:Cigar Aficionado
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528:Andrew Meacham,
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401:Death and legacy
378:Imperial Tobacco
245:El Rey del Mundo
141:supervising the
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542:March 25, 2010.
537:Wayback Machine
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463:Cigar Magazine,
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284:Flor de Palacio
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268:1959 revolution
217:Central America
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159:Joe Cullman III
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315:Boston Celtics
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132:North Atlantic
128:Gulf of Mexico
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23:Frank Llaneza
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616:Cigar makers
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411:grandmasters
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370:J.R. Tobacco
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107:Early career
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42:, including
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596:2010 deaths
591:1920 births
376:, owned by
204:cigars for
86:Rey del Rey
67:Early years
585:Categories
355:cigar boom
319:Art Rooney
206:nightclubs
195:trademarks
182:bankrupted
143:torcedores
421:Footnotes
357:, to the
253:cigarette
229:Nicaragua
174:rationing
103:in 1936.
77:Ybor City
62:Biography
570:See also
533:Archived
366:Cofradia
295:Honduras
130:and the
397:brand.
374:Altadis
321:of the
313:of the
288:Belinda
178:dumping
139:foreman
113:tobacco
52:Bolivar
32:tobacco
225:Jalapa
81:strike
54:, and
576:Cigar
415:chess
391:Siglo
303:DanlĂ
118:With
56:Siglo
48:Punch
36:cigar
317:and
247:and
165:and
150:Cuba
309:as
227:in
208:in
161:of
587::
547:^
515:^
470:^
428:^
380:.
361:.
325:.
88:.
58:.
50:,
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