Sam Morales will no longer be the marketing director of Drew Estate.

The company announced that Morales has resigned to pursue other interests. It’s the end of a five-year tenure at Drew Estate which began in 2013 as an analyst within marketing. He was promoted and became director of marketing in November 2016.

Morales helped oversee the development of the Drew Diplomat Retail Program (DDRP), the company’s expanded portfolio of Barn Smoker events and its transition after Swisher International acquired Drew Estate in 2014.

“Jonathan (Drew) is one of the best brand marketers and tobacco men this industry has ever seen, he is one of my best friends on the planet, and I am blessed and humbled to have been mentored by him over the past five years,” said Morales, in a press release. “Once I have transitioned my work at Drew Estate, my immediate plan is to go to the beach, scuba dive, and smoke some Dirty Rats. Thank you JD, Marvin, Joey, Willy, Pedro, Fabien, Jessi, Garcia, all the boys in the Swag Cave, Swisher International, and the DE team past and present for memories that I will always cherish.”

A press release said Morales would stay on in transition and that the company has begun looking for a replacement.

“Sam is the little brother that I never had plus so much more,” said Drew, the company’s co-founder. “For the past five years he has been an integral part of my life and I am so proud of all Sam has accomplished at Drew Estate. Together, we added incredible texture to multi-generational brands, constantly innovated, and dreamed bigger than we could have ever imagined. Sam’s thought leadership helped define our product segments throughout our sales channels and sub-channels, and infused the organization with long-term innovative capability.”

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Charlie Minato

I am an editor and co-founder of halfwheel.com/Rueda Media, LLC. I previously co-founded and published TheCigarFeed, one of the two predecessors of halfwheel. I have written about the cigar industry for more than a decade, covering everything from product launches to regulation to M&A. In addition, I handle a lot of the behind-the-scenes stuff here at halfwheel. I enjoy playing tennis, watching boxing, falling asleep to the Le Mans 24, wearing sweatshirts year-round and eating gyros. echte liebe.