Vincent George Marotta Sr. (February 22, 1924 – August 1, 2015) was an American businessman, investor and philanthropist. He is best known for being the co-creator of
Mr. Coffee
Mr. Coffee is a registered trademark of Newell Brands. The Mr. Coffee brand manufactures automatic-drip kitchen coffee machines, as well as other products. The brand was founded in the early 1970s. Mr. Coffee has often been referenced in popula ...
, one of the first
automatic drip coffee maker
A coffeemaker, coffee maker or coffee machine is a cooking appliance used to brew coffee. While there are many different types of coffeemakers the two most common brewing principles use gravity or pressure to move hot water through coffee gr ...
s to be introduced to the American consumer market.
Marotta, who conceived the idea for the Mr. Coffee machine, developed it with his business partner,
Samuel Glazer, to replace the slower, more challenging
percolator
A coffee percolator is a type of pot used for the brewing of coffee by continually cycling the boiling or nearly boiling brew through the Coffee preparation#Grinding, grounds using gravity until the required strength is reached.
Coffee percolat ...
for use in homes.
[ Marotta and Glazer began marketing Mr. Coffee in 1972. Marotta, who was responsible for much of the company's marketing as chairman and CEO, recruited ]Joe DiMaggio
Joseph Paul DiMaggio (November 25, 1914 – March 8, 1999), nicknamed "Joltin' Joe", "The Yankee Clipper" and "Joe D.", was an American baseball center fielder who played his entire 13-year career in Major League Baseball for the New York Yank ...
to appear in a series of Mr. Coffee television commercial
A television advertisement (also called a television commercial, TV commercial, commercial, spot, television spot, TV spot, advert, television advert, TV advert, television ad, TV ad or simply an ad) is a span of television programming produce ...
s. By 1979, just seven years after its consumer launch, sales of Mr. Coffee accounted for 50% of the U.S. consumer coffee maker
A coffeemaker, coffee maker or coffee machine is a cooking appliance used to brew coffee. While there are many different types of coffeemakers the two most common brewing principles use gravity or pressure to move hot water through coffee gr ...
with sales of $150 million.[
]
Biography
Marotta was born Vincent George Marotta in Cleveland, Ohio
Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. ...
, on February 22, 1924, to Italian immigrant parents, Calogero "Charles" Marotta, a coal
Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen.
Coal is formed when dea ...
dealer, and the former Josephine Mirabella.[ Marotta was born on February 22, the birthday of ]George Washington
George Washington (February 22, 1732, 1799) was an American military officer, statesman, and Founding Father who served as the first president of the United States from 1789 to 1797. Appointed by the Continental Congress as commander of th ...
, so his parents chose George as his middle name
In various cultures, a middle name is a portion of a personal name that is written between the person's first given name and their surname.
A middle name is often abbreviated and is then called middle initial or just initial.
A person may be ...
.[
Marotta, an athlete, completed high school. In 1942, Marotta was signed as center fielder for the ]St. Louis Cardinals
The St. Louis Cardinals are an American professional baseball team based in St. Louis. The Cardinals compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) Central division. Since the 2006 season, the Cardinals ha ...
.[ However, Marotta enlisted in the ]U.S. Army
The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cl ...
during World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
just before spring training and never played professionally for the Cardinals.[ He served in a domestic capacity during the war. He completed his ]bachelor's degree
A bachelor's degree (from Middle Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate academic degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to six ...
in history at Mount Union College
The University of Mount Union is a private university in Alliance, Ohio. Founded in 1846, the university was affiliated with the Methodist Church until the spring of 2019. In the fall of 2020, Mount Union had an enrollment of 1,958 undergraduate ...
, now called the University of Mount Union
The University of Mount Union is a private university in Alliance, Ohio. Founded in 1846, the university was affiliated with the Methodist Church until the spring of 2019. In the fall of 2020, Mount Union had an enrollment of 1,958 undergraduat ...
, in Alliance, Ohio
Alliance is a city in eastern Stark County, Ohio, United States. With a small district lying in adjacent Mahoning County, the city is approximately northeast of Canton, southwest of Youngstown and southeast of Cleveland. The population was 21 ...
.[
He returned to professional athletics in 1948, when he was drafted by both the ]Cleveland Browns
The Cleveland Browns are a professional American football team based in Cleveland. Named after original coach and co-founder Paul Brown, they compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the American Football Conference ( ...
of the now defunct All-America Football Conference
The All-America Football Conference (AAFC) was a professional American football league that challenged the established National Football League (NFL) from 1946 to 1949. One of the NFL's most formidable challengers, the AAFC attracted many of the ...
and the New York Giants
The New York Giants are a professional American football team based in the New York metropolitan area. The Giants compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) East division. ...
of the National Football League
The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ...
. He decided to play for the Cleveland Browns as a running back
A running back (RB) is a member of the offensive backfield in gridiron football. The primary roles of a running back are to receive American football plays#Offensive terminology, handoffs from the quarterback to Rush (American football)#Offen ...
.[ Marotta retired in 1951.
]
Mr. Coffee
He left the Browns after a short period. Marotta soon partnered with a friend, Samuel Glazer, a housing and mall developer, whom Marotta had known since high school.[ Glazer and Marotta had established North American Systems, with Marotta serving as the company's chairman and ]CEO
A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...
from creation until the partners sold the company in 1987.[
However, a ]credit crunch
A credit crunch (also known as a credit squeeze, credit tightening or credit crisis) is a sudden reduction in the general availability of loans (or credit) or a sudden tightening of the conditions required to obtain a loan from banks. A credit cr ...
in 1968 made real estate
Real estate is property consisting of land and the buildings on it, along with its natural resources such as crops, minerals or water; immovable property of this nature; an interest vested in this (also) an item of real property, (more general ...
financing
Funding is the act of providing resources to finance a need, program, or project. While this is usually in the form of money, it can also take the form of effort or time from an organization or company. Generally, this word is used when a firm uses ...
much more difficult to obtain, which hurt Glazer's and Marotta's business.[ Marotta pondered an alternative business to real estate due to the credit squeeze of 1968.][ His thoughts turned to a new, potential household coffee maker.][ During the late 1960s, the ]coffee percolator
A coffee percolator is a type of pot used for the brewing of coffee by continually cycling the boiling or nearly boiling brew through the grounds using gravity until the required strength is reached.
Coffee percolators once enjoyed great popul ...
, a mainstays in American homes, the commercially available consumer alternative to instant coffee
Instant coffee is a beverage derived from brewed coffee beans that enables people to quickly prepare hot coffee by adding hot water or milk to coffee solids in powdered or crystallized form and stirring. Instant coffee solids (also called sol ...
.[ Many drinkers disliked the coffee brewed by the common household percolator. A percolator reuses the same water and ]coffee grounds
Coffee preparation is the process of turning coffee beans into a beverage. While the particular steps vary with the type of coffee and with the raw materials, the process includes four basic steps: raw coffee beans must be roasted, the roaste ...
over and over, resulting in a bitter taste as some grounds are used three or four times.[ Marotta and his partner sought to replicate a replacement coffeemaker, based on the drip coffee makers utilized in restaurants and other commercial establishments, but not available to consumers.][ His wife, Ann Marotta, who also disliked the coffee available at the time, became an inspiration for Marotta's new business plan as well, according to their daughter, Susan Parente.][
Marotta created the ]prototype
A prototype is an early sample, model, or release of a product built to test a concept or process. It is a term used in a variety of contexts, including semantics, design, electronics, and Software prototyping, software programming. A prototyp ...
for his drip coffee machine, which would come to by called Mr. Coffee. He spent approximately three years " "searching for 'a mechanical means of controlling the time and temperature of the water' in a coffeemaker," according to his October 1979 interview with ''Forbes'' magazine.[ He compared his work with that of ]Michelangelo
Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (; 6 March 1475 – 18 February 1564), known as Michelangelo (), was an Italian sculptor, painter, architect, and poet of the High Renaissance. Born in the Republic of Florence, his work was insp ...
.[
Glazer and Marotta hired two former Westinghouse engineers, Edmund Abel and Erwin Schulze, to design a drip coffee machine for household use. Abel and Schultze designed a machine with filtered water, heated to 200 degrees ]Fahrenheit
The Fahrenheit scale () is a temperature scale based on one proposed in 1724 by the physicist Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit (1686–1736). It uses the degree Fahrenheit (symbol: °F) as the unit. Several accounts of how he originally defined his ...
, through coffee grounds scooped into a paper coffee filter
A coffee filter is a filter used for brewing coffee. Filters made of paper (disposable), or cloth, plastic, and metal (reusable) are used. The filter allows the liquid coffee to flow through, but traps the coffee grounds.
Paper filters remove oi ...
.[ The coffee is then dispensed into a glass ]carafe
A carafe () is a glass container with a flared lip used for serving liquids, especially wine and coffee. Unlike the related decanter, carafes generally do not include stoppers. Coffee pots included in coffee makers are also referred to as ''car ...
.
Marotta and Glazer manufactured their Mr. Coffee machine under their company, North American Systems.[ North American Systems debuted Mr. Coffee in the U.S. consumer market in 1972. The maker was priced at $39.99, equal to $226 in 2015 dollars, but the machine proved a hit with consumers.][ To market the product, Marotta recruited baseball player ]Joe DiMaggio
Joseph Paul DiMaggio (November 25, 1914 – March 8, 1999), nicknamed "Joltin' Joe", "The Yankee Clipper" and "Joe D.", was an American baseball center fielder who played his entire 13-year career in Major League Baseball for the New York Yank ...
as Mr. Coffee's spokesman.[ DiMaggio's commercials were popular, though, in reality, DiMaggio rarely drank coffee due to ulcers.][
North American System sold more than a million Mr. Coffee machines by 1975.][ Total sales reached $50 million by 1979, with Mr. Coffee machines accounting for 50% of the U.S. consumer ]coffee maker
A coffeemaker, coffee maker or coffee machine is a cooking appliance used to brew coffee. While there are many different types of coffeemakers the two most common brewing principles use gravity or pressure to move hot water through coffee gr ...
during that same year.[ Glazer and Marotta headed North American System, Mr. Coffee's parent company, until 1987, when North American Systems was acquired by a securities firm in a ]leveraged buyout
A leveraged buyout (LBO) is one company's acquisition of another company using a significant amount of borrowed money (leverage) to meet the cost of acquisition. The assets of the company being acquired are often used as collateral for the loan ...
worth $82 million.[
]
Later life
Marotta concentrated on philanthropic
Philanthropy is a form of altruism that consists of "private initiatives, for the public good, focusing on quality of life". Philanthropy contrasts with business initiatives, which are private initiatives for private good, focusing on material ...
pursuits and real estate investing during his later life.[ In addition to his home in ]Ohio
Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...
, Marotta and his wife resided at homes in Frenchman's Creek in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida
Palm Beach Gardens is a city in Palm Beach County in the U.S. state of Florida, 77 miles north of downtown Miami. , the population was 59,182. Palm Beach Gardens is a principal city of the Miami metropolitan area, which was home to an estimated 6 ...
, and the Bear's Club in Jupiter, Florida
Jupiter is the northernmost town in Palm Beach County, Florida, United States. According to the 2020 Census, the town had a population of 61,047 as of April 1, 2020. It is 84 miles north of Miami, and the northernmost community in the Miami met ...
, for more than 20 years.
Samuel Glazer, his business partner and the co-developer of Mr. Coffee, died in March 2012.
Vincent Marotta died at his home in Pepper Pike, Ohio, on August 1, 2015, at the age of 91. He was survived by his wife, Ann Laughlin, whom he had married in 1954, and his six children: Mary Marotta, Jane Marotta, Susan Parente, Charles Marotta, Timothy Marotta Sr., and Vincent Marotta Jr.[
]
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Marotta, Vincent
1924 births
2015 deaths
20th-century American inventors
American drink industry businesspeople
American chief executives of food industry companies
American food company founders
American investors
United States Army personnel of World War II
American people of Italian descent
American real estate businesspeople
Businesspeople from Florida
Businesspeople from Ohio
Cleveland Browns players
People from Jupiter, Florida
People from Palm Beach Gardens, Florida
People from Pepper Pike, Ohio
Sportspeople from Palm Beach, Florida
University of Mount Union alumni
20th-century American businesspeople
20th-century American philanthropists