Rick Rodriguez, ambassador and blender of CAO Cigars, is retiring at the age of 62 from General Cigar Co., a daughter company of the Scandinavian Tobacco Group. He has been with the company for over twenty years.
“This job has been a dream come true for me, and so much of it seems like fate. From the moment Edgar Cullman Sr. offered me the job to study under the company’s cigar masters, I knew how lucky I was. When I write my life story, and maybe now I will, my time in the cigar business will be a huge part of that story. Looking back, I still to this day ask,” why me”. Now, as I get ready to step down, I’m able to answer my own question. Thank God it was me,” said Rodriguez in a press release.
Rodriguez joined the company in 2000 as a sales rep and later on was given a chance to learn about the tobacco side of the industry and learned under legends such as Benjamin Menendez, Daniel Núñez, and Ernesto Perez-Carrillo. He was fundamental in some of CAO’s greatest hits, like the Amazon Basin, Bones, and Flathead, to name a few.
We had the pleasure of interviewing Rick not too long ago. Check out our Winter 2020 issue.