Goodbye Jose and Hello Javier by Frank Seltzer
Late last week word came out that Jose Seijas was leaving as Vice President and General Manager of Tabacalera de Garcia, possibly the largest cigar factory in the world. His retirement took effect in the last week or so. The La Romana factory is home to Altadis USA’s Dominican blends—Montecristo, Romeo y Julieta, H. Upmann and even the machine made cigars like Backwoods. (However, under Altadis USA’s reorganization last year the company split the machine from the premium operation and the premium was under Seijas. By the way Backwoods is the largest selling all natural tobacco cigar in the world.)
Jose Seijas and Javier Elmudesi
Seijas, 61, came to the factory in 1974, just 2 years after it opened, as an industrial engineer. His first job was in sorting and stripping of the leaves. Applying his engineering background he found ways to set standards to make the workers happier. The standards, he said, allowed for a fair amount of work, not too much and not too little and that saved a lot of problems and complaints.
Over the years, Jose moved up through the company to become a Vice President and General Manager of the factory. He helped launch the extremely successful Vega Fina in the Spanish market and last year, he launched the limited edition Jose Seijas Signature Vega Fina. Jose and his team also blended the Seijas Signature Collection.
Javier Elmudesi will take over La Romana as Factory Manager. Javier is no stranger to the operation having joined the company as an industrial engineer first through Revlon when Ron Perelman owned both Revlon and at that time Consolidated Cigar. Javier stayed with Revlon for 3-4 years before moving over to the cigar side. He has been with Tabacalera de Garcia for the past 15 years. He was Jose’s right hand man as plant manager and assistant General Manager.
Smokers worse than possible criminals
Dr. Michael Siegel (who for the record is against smoking) notes that for the Cleveland Clinic you can be a suspected white collar criminal and get a job, BUT if they suspect you are a smoker…no way.
Apparently, the Clinic hired Tom Thornton who left the Kansas Bioscience Authority under a cloud of a criminal investigation and in the early stages of a forensic audit of his agency. The state funded KBA invested taxpayer dollars in bioscience companies. Thornton was faulted in an audit for destroying documents, misusing public funds for personal expenses and creating an uncomfortable working environment by dating a woman he hired and later married. He even cited being a target of a criminal investigation when resigning last April (although professing his innocence.) He left to go to work for The Cleveland Clinic as General Manager of Strategic Alliances.
Here are the quotes from Siegel:
These are apparently the principles that the Cleveland Clinic stands for in its hiring policies. Under no circumstances will the Cleveland Clinic hire a smoker or a nicotine user because it sends a “bad example,” but hiring a suspected criminal is perfectly fine.
In reality, the Cleveland Clinic ban on hiring smokers only applies to “suspected smokers” because the Clinic cannot prove that these individuals actually smoke. They can only prove that they use nicotine, which could have been in the form of nicotine replacement therapy. They will not, however, take the person’s word for it.
In contrast, if you are a suspected criminal, the Cleveland Clinic will apparently take your word that you are not guilty. They do not require proof of your innocence.
Nice.
Again the numbers don’t add up
Over at Cigar Weekly they were talking about an article from MSNBC.
The article was designed to scare the crap out of you in that the headline says, “Many keep smoking after cancer diagnosis.” How sick is that. Well read into the article and you find that they are studying lung cancer and COLORECTAL patients. This was my first WTF. Colorectal? Were they smoking with their butt? Did someone NOT show them how to smoke? (Or as my wife says maybe they’ve had too much smoke blown up their ass.)
The second WTF moment came when they said 38 percent of the lung cancer and 15 percent of the colorectal cancer patients were smokers. Which of course means 62 and 85 percent respectively were NOT smokers.
But aside from that, then it gets weird:
According to the Lung Cancer Foundation of America, 60 percent of new lung cancer diagnoses happen to non-smokers, 15 percent of whom have never smoked a day in their life (the rest are former smokers who quit 10, 20 or even 30 years prior to diagnosis). The American Lung Association estimates that active smoking is responsible for close to 90 percent of lung cancer cases; radon causes 10 percent, and occupational exposures to carcinogens account for approximately 9 to 15 percent.
I guess the American Lung Association, or maybe the reporter cannot add. 90 percent plus 10 percent plus 9- 15 percent…115%????
Accuracy does not matter when you are trying to make a point I guess.
Look, these morons are trying to dictate our lives. Flooding Congress with calls and petitions CAN work. Look at what happened with SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act). It has been delayed and Congress is rethinking a bad law. Even if you have done it once already, contact your Senator and Representative again. The Cigar Rights of America makes it easy. Please keep doing this to be certain the FDA does not ruin the cigar industry….because it will.
