Rick Rodriguez

Rick Rodriguez is a Tampa blender and brand owner whose family story starts in Cuban rolling rooms. His grandparents, Emanuel and Olga Rodriguez, were Havana rollers who settled in West Tampa in the 1950s. Rick himself entered the trade in 2000 as a Florida salesman for General Cigar, recruited by a friend from Lamaze class. In 2005 Edgar Cullman Sr. put him into General's blender program under Benji Menendez, Daniel Núñez, and Ernesto Perez-Carrillo. After years with Menendez he joined the La Gloria Cubana blending team in 2008, when Perez-Carrillo left to start what became Casa Carrillo.

When STG bought CAO, Rodriguez became CAO's master blender and brand ambassador from 2010 until he left in April 2022. He was the public face of lines such as Brazilia, Flathead, and other CAO catalog cigars, and he has said he expected to stay there for life. Then his daughter Sara wanted into the business. He retired from General and, with Sara and fellow General alumnus Gus Martinez (president), launched West Tampa Tobacco Co. in 2022. White, Black, Red, and the Attic Series tell Tampa and family stories on the boxes, not just blend codes.

Who makes West Tampa cigars? Core production is at Garmendia in Estelí, with some work also recorded at NACSA. Rodriguez blends and owns. He does not run an STG factory. CAO remains on this map as the corporate chapter of his career. West Tampa is the independent one. If you are asking who Rick Rodriguez is, that split is the answer: longtime CAO blender, then family boutique in the old cigar capital's name.