José Seijas, Longtime Tabacalera de García Head & Matilde Founder, Passes Away at 74

José Seijas, who once ran the Dominican Republic’s largest cigar factory, has passed away at the age of 74.

The news was announced by Matilde Cigar Co., the company he founded in 2013. Seijas was born in the Dominican Republic’s capital of Santo Domingo. After obtaining a degree in industrial engineering, he was hired by Consolidated Cigar Corp. in 1974 at the age of 24. He took a job at Tabacalera de García in La Romana, a city where his father once served as mayor.

Today, Tabacalera de García is known for producing the non-Cuban versions of Montecristo, Romeo y Julieta, H. Upmann and various other Cuban brands that Altadis U.S.A. sells in the U.S. as non-Cuban cigars. When Seijas arrived, Tabacalera de García was making machine-made cigars, not handmade cigars. In the 1980s, Seijas helped oversee the transition of the factory from a machine-made operation to a hand-rolled cigar factory. He also worked through various Tabacalera de García owners ranging from Gulf Western Oil, the billionaire Ronald Perelman, and Altadis, the joint venture created by former state-run tobacco monopolies of France and Spain.

Over the years, Seijas climbed the ladder until he became the general manager and the head blender for the factory, which at various points has been the largest premium cigar factory in the world. Beyond the tobacco, Seijas was tasked with managing thousands of people who worked at the factory.

In 2000, after more than 25 years at the company, Altadis U.S.A. released the José Seijas Signature Series. Even in today’s world of dozens of new cigars per month, very few cigars are named after a living person unless that person is an owner of the cigar company. For Altadis, one of the world’s largest cigar companies, to release a cigar named after an employee was even rarer. That cigar was described as Seijas’ personal blend.

Seijas announced that he was leaving Tabacalera de García in early 2012, retiring with the titles of vice president and general manager.

Later that year, he and Litto Gomez of La Flor Dominicana announced that they would establish a small factory in La Romana that would roll La Flor Dominicana cigars for visiting tourists. A year later, he launched his own cigar company: La Matilde Cigar Co., which is run today by his youngest son, Enrique.

Image via Matilde Cigar Co.