Mario Pastega (1916–2012) was an American businessman. A soft-drink bottler in the state of Oregon for nearly six decades, Pastega was elected to the Beverage World Hall of Fame in 2002. Pastega is best remembered as a patron of education and as the funder and namesake of the Mario Pastega House, a hostel in Corvallis, Oregon offering low cost or free accommodations to families of hospitalized patients in that town.
. . . Mario Pastega . . .
Mario Pastega was born 12 December 1916 in Weed, California. He was the son of a cobbler named Romano Pastega and his wife, the former Giuseppina Cunial, who worked as a maid.[1] His parents emigrated from a town in the Italian Alps to the United States in 1907, eventually making their way west to open up a shoe repair shop in Weed.[1] Mario worked for his father in the shoe repair store from the age of 12.[2]
Pastega grew up in the home speaking Italian as his first language, learning English only after being enrolled in school in Weed.[1] Pastega was raised a Roman Catholic and remained an active member of the Catholic Church throughout his life.[1]
Pastega trained as a legal transcriptionist, working variously as a court clerk and court reporter, taking trial transcriptions.[2]
Pastega married the former Alma Solari (1917–2008) in April 1938.[3] Together the couple raised five children.[1] The couple’s three sons each followed their father into the soda bottling business, each managing one of the company’s three plants.[1]
In 1948 Pastega began his ultimate career path when he purchased a half share in the Pepsi-Cola bottling plant of Klamath Falls, Oregon from his wife’s brother.[4] The Pastega family remained in that Southern Oregon town until 1961, when the family’s bottling empire was expanded through purchase of the Pepsi-Cola bottling plant in Corvallis, Oregon.[2] Pastega and his family subsequently moved to Corvallis to manage that facility.[3]
Pastega subsequently sold his share of the Klamath Falls bottling operation and used the proceeds to purchase additional Pepsi bottling plants in the Oregon towns of Tillamook and Medford.[4]
In the early 1980s, Pastega launched a new business, the Mount Angel Beverage Company, in Mount Angel, Oregon.[4]
Over the course of his life Pastega personally met every president in the history of the Pepsi-Cola Company.[4] In December 2010 Pepsi CEO Donald M. Kendall flew to Oregon to attend Pastega’s 94th birthday celebration.[4]
In 2002 Pastega was honored by election to membership in the Beverage World Hall of Fame for his career efforts in the soft drink bottling industry.[5]
. . . Mario Pastega . . .