An Interview With J. Paul Pepin - Ian Beckles

Perhaps nothing heralds the arrival of the holiday season quite like that first commercial in which we see the Clydesdale horses galloping through the snow, pulling that red, white and gold beer wagon.

It’s difficult not to perk up and hum that familiar tune, “Do do do do do do do “ and as the warming voice comes on to say “From our family to yours, we wish you a very safe and happy holiday season”.

The Clydesdales have been around since they first paraded to celebrate the end of prohibition in 1933. They made their television debut in “Here Comes the King”, the original commercial which aired in 1967. That first spot had lyrics to accompany the famous jingle but eventually the melody alone would be all that was needed to recognize the holidays were officially upon us.

As much as those spots are a part of our traditions, so are the people who helped bring them to us, the Anheuser-Busch Family. And eventually that First Family of beer would extend their arms to the son of a Vermont railroad worker.

Art Pepin came from meager beginnings, selling beer out of the back of his station wagon in New England. By 1960 he was heading up one of the south’s most successful Anheuser-Busch facilities in Gainesville, and in 1967 August Busch Jr. personally awarded Pepin with the distributorship in Tampa, Florida.

In that first year, the Tampa market sold 1.5 million cases of beer and 33,000 half barrels of draught. Two decades later, annual sales exceeded 10 million cases and 150,000 half barrels. But more importantly, the Pepin Family entrenched itself in the Tampa Bay community becoming an intricate part of both the economy and the social landscape.

Upon passing away in June of 2000 at the age of 78, Art Pepin left the company and a rich legacy to his four children. Today, brothers Tom and James (J.P.) run the day to day operations at the Tampa facility adhering to the same philosophy their father lived by, “Making Friends is Our Foundation”.

Over the years, the Pepin Family has provided money to construct Pepin-Rood Stadium, home of the University of Tampa athletics, a $1 million donation which led to the development of the Pepin Heart and Vascular Institute at University Community Hospital and the Pepin Academy, a Tampa school for teenagers with learning disabilities.

For this issue of AS*I*BE Magazine, who better to discuss the holidays and family than J. Pepin.

IB: What are your earliest memories as a kid being around the beer business?

JP: I remember sweeping the floors over on 54th street, our first warehouse. After work I used to pitch quarters with the guys against the back wall when they came off their route. And I look on this Wall of Fame we have here and I see a lot of those same names.

All those guys are like family. They are the foundation of our company and I think that is why we’ve been able to be so successful. We’ve got guys who’ve worked here for more than four decades.

IB: What’s the most important lesson your father taught you about business in general?

JP: Dad’s big deal was that he never let us forget where he came from. He came from very humble beginnings. He said to treat employees right, as you would your friends. And I think that shows to this day. We always hire from within. In fact, I can’t remember the last employee we hired from outside.  They’ve all come through the warehouse. Our youngest market manager out there has at least 14 to 17 years of experience on the street. I mean you can’t buy that experience.

IB: Did your father mentor you that way?

JP: Oh yea. I started by sweeping floors when I was eight years old. I was riding the trucks, helping with deliveries, when I was 16 and I had my first route when I was 18. My dad believed in hard work and every summer I worked in the warehouse all through high school.

IB: Well I can imagine growing up as a young man and having your family own one of the largest beer distributorships in the country had to be quite interesting.

JP:  Absolutely. When we first moved here, dad made close friend with Dow Sherwood who owned the Riverboat Dinner Theatre in St. Pete. Bob Crane (Hogan’s Heroes), Sonny Bono, Caesar Romero (Joker from Batman) are all names that would come through. They would do a stint at the dinner theatre and when they wanted to get away and have nobody bother them, they’d come over to our house and play golf or use the pool. I’d come home form school and there’s Sonny Bono playing tennis in the back yard or John Forsythe (Charlie’s Angels, Dynasty) hanging out by the pool. I would go up and talk to them and ask them if they needed anything. They were all great people.

Bob Hope, Phyllis Diller, Mickey Mantle, Howard Cosell, they were all good friends of my dad so things were never boring.

IB: I bet. Any stories that stick out?

JP: Well the wildest one I can remember was Tiny Tim. He was out there. He was wild. One time he came down for the Super Bowl and the family was having a clam bake for about 600 people in the back yard, and here comes Tiny Tim singing Tip-Toe Through the Tulips with a Budweiser tuxedo on.

IB: So that was the thing you remember most?

JP: Well hold on a sec. I take that back. When I was 10, about 1970, the Baltimore Colts and the Washington Redskins had a game here in Tampa. And on the first night they were in town we had the Colts over for dinner. So here comes Johnny Unitas and Bubba Smith walking in the door. I was the greeter so I reach out to grab this guy’s (Bubba) hand and almost hit him in the belt buckle. That’s how tall he was. He was huge. The biggest man I’d ever seen. Then the following night Sonny Jurgensen is over with the Redskins team. How cool is that?

IB: I’ll say. Sounds like you had a very popular house?

JP: Yea, you could say that. We always had two kegs behind the bar at all times. But truly, I’ve got to give credit to Mom. There were always bins of lasagna or cakes in the refrigerator. She had to have everything ready because Dad would go golfing and then be on his way home with 20 or 30 people and call up and say, “get the food ready”. This would sometimes be five or six days a week.

IB: Sounds like you had a good time as a young man?

JP: I graduated Jesuit High School in 1979. My brother Tom graduated there in 1971. I was probably the most popular guy on Senior Skip Day. It was a pretty good time for me. But yea as a young man things were fun and remember the drinking age back then was 18 years old.

IB: Did you have your first beer with your dad?

JP: They’ve actually got a picture of me with a head of foam on my baby bottle. 

Of course I’m kidding, but being in the beer business sure made our house a little different. My dad would let us have a sip if we had a new brand that would come through. And I do the same with my son. I want him to smell it, taste it and get him to understand it. That’s the key. It’s to get the kids to understand that it is an alcoholic beverage and it’s not to be abused. Don’t go out and pound them and do beer bongs with your friends because that’s where you get into trouble.

IB: You seem like a man who still likes to enjoy life and have a good time?

JP: Yea, I do.  I was raised that way. Dad enjoyed life. I don’t think I’ve ever met or ever heard anybody who didn’t like my father. He got along with everybody.

We’d pull up to The Retreat, downtown by The University of Tampa, and there would be five guys up against the wall and dad would sit and just talk with them like they were his best fiends.

He’s even been to The White House with three or four Presidents. My father was a guy who didn’t care what race, color or gender you were. To him everybody was good people. And I’m the same way, I try to get along with everybody. 

IB: What were the holidays like at your house?

JP: Thanksgiving was huge at our family. Our big thing was to smoke turkeys. We’d have two or three going at the same time. In all, we’d smoke about eight to 10 turkeys and we’d give half away to needy families or charities. We’d always take two to feedthe homeless on Thanksgiving Day.

IB: And now? What about your own family traditions?

JP: Well my brother Tom is seven years older than I am and I’m 49. He’s President and CEO of the company. And I’ll let you know, he used to whip me until I was 14 or 15. Then I got bigger than him. (Laughs) He and I are still best friends.  Then there is my sister Pam (59), she was the first female paramedic in Hillsborough County. My other sister Jill (54) was a stewardess for Eastern Airlines. They both went to the Academy of Holy Names and now they own the building we’re in.

And Mom still lives in the original house the family built when we moved here.

I have three kids, Tanner (20) Sydney (13) and Colten (12). And of course my beautiful wife Patsy. We still love to get together for the holidays and carry on those same traditions.

IB: What about the Clydesdales? Do you feel it like everybody else when you see that first commercial this time of year?

JP: Oh, absolutely. We’ve always been associated with the Clydesdales. When I see them around Thanksgiving or bringing that tree in for Christmas, that’s an iconic symbol.  It’s like apple pie and baseball.

IB: Baseball? I thought Thanksgiving was about football?

JP: Well, that was a figure of speech. To tell you the truth, my father had a longstanding relationship with Hugh Culverhouse. Dad was on founding board which brought the Buccaneers here in 1976.

At that time I was 16 and a sophomore. My junior year I’d go out and catch balls from Doug Williams.  I remember that vividly. He told me 10-yards and out and I’d turn around that ball hit me square in the helmet.

And it was Dave Green, the punter for the Bucs from ’76 to ’79, who I hung out with and who I helped me get a punting scholarship to Colorado State.

IB: So you were a Ram? I didn’t know you played college ball.

JP: Yep, I majored in wine, women and song, passed all three, and they sent me home.

IB: And the family is still involved in a lot of charitable causes I assume?

JP: Since last year we’ve raised almost 3 ½ million dollars for charity in our hospitality room here at Pepin. We donate the room to different charities quite often.

And that benefits all parties. It’s two-fold, not only do we help the charity but it allows people to come in and see the facility and what we do for the community and at the same time sample fine products.

As much as we do for the community, it’s nice for them to support us and drink our products because they know, or at least I hope they know, that if they support us the money is going to go right back into the city.

IB: Well I’m sure if your father Art were alive today he’d be proud of you and your brother for continuing the fine work in the community and carrying on the excellent tradition that both Anheuser-Busch and the Pepin families have become known for.

JP: Well I appreciate that Ian. I’m certainly proud. We’re still growing. We have over 150 skews in the warehouse and we’ve expanded in last year as we have ciders and crafts a new products out every day it seems.

This is our third warehouse we’re bulging at the seams. I got to give credit to my brother, he’s the one who really put this facility together, especially on the back end.

You know when InBev purchased Anheuser-Busch last year some people were upset because we are an American Institution. But it’s such a global market and a global economy. The stock was already owned by 30 million people all over the world, so it was all in the way you look at it.

Nothing has changed. The same farmers are growing the same grain and the same workers are in the same breweries and products here have been delivered by the same family for the last 42 years.

In fact Tampa has always been a great test market for Anheuser-Busch. We were the first ones to have Eagle Snacks, Zeltzer Seltzers, Dewey Stevens Coolers and a ton of other things because we have such great demographics and a nice diversity of people.

And that’s why we love this community and will continue to support it.