Vincent G. Marotta*

Vincent Marotta was born in 1924 and grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, where his father, an Italian immigrant, ran a coal company. Because his father was not fluent in English, Marotta helped him by doing front-office work as well as weighing deliveries and sifting coal.

A good student and excellent athlete, Marotta signed a contract to play professional baseball with the St. Louis Cardinals. He enrolled in Mt. Union College, winning All-Ohio football honors in his freshman year. Seven months later, just two days before he was to join the Cardinals for spring training, Marotta was called up for active duty in World War II, having enlisted the previous fall.

After his honorary discharge, Marotta returned to Mt. Union, where he set records in both football and track. He briefly played football for the Cleveland Browns and then taught school for two years. He began building backyard garages, and his business boomed. He expanded into construction of housing subdivisions and shopping centers.

In 1968, Marotta's thoughts turned to coffee. He did not like the coffee he was drinking at home and began to wonder about new ways of brewing coffee rather than percolating it. He set up a shop in a back room of his real estate development office and spent the next two years developing the ideal coffee maker. He took his working model to the Chicago Housewares Show and came home with thousands of orders. At that time, it took an entire day to make one Mr. Coffee, the name he gave to his invention. Three years later, Marotta's company was manufacturing 42,000 Mr. Coffee units a day. Mr. Coffee became the largest-selling coffee maker in the world.

Recognizing the need to market Mr. Coffee nationwide, Marotta asked Joe DiMaggio serve as his spokesman. "I chose him because he had a good reputation, and he was my boyhood hero," said Marotta.