When Jon Huber, former Director of Lifestyle Marketing announced he was leaving the CAO Brand (now a part of General Cigars) this past December, there was little doubt for us who follow this great industry that he would resurface again.  Today, Huber announced the formation of his own company, Crowned Heads LLC.

The city of Nashville was the home to CAO Cigars until the completion of the acquisition as part of the General Cigars family.   The good news is the cigar business will remain alive and well in that city as Crowned Heads will be based there.  Joining Huber will be three former CAO employees: Mike Conder, former CAO senior VP of marketing); Michael Trebing, (former CAO  Creative Media Manager), and Nancy Heathman, (former CAO Graphic Designer).

The folks at NiceTightAsh.com have the press release.  You can read it here.

One key component of the press release is that Crowned Heads would be a boutique company that eschews titles, offices and cubicles.  Great stuff, I fully expected Huber to do things his own way.  It is why he was so successful at CAO and made history in the industry.

I took a look around Crowned Heads new webpage and I must say I was impressed with what I am seeing.  Here are a few highlights:

The home page of the web-site says “Follow us down a path back to a time when quality, pride, and integrity mattered. Join us on our journey and witness what it takes to launch a premium cigar company from the ground floor up.”   How cool is this?   Watching something like this grow is truly going to be exciting.

As part of the philosophy statement of the web-page, Crowned Heads mentions: “Crowned Heads is influenced by a time when quality, pride, and integrity mattered.  We strive to bring our vision to reality and invite you to live in our world.  We are not here to do it like everyone else.  When the rules don’t make sense to us, we carve our own path.”  Again, got to love it.

Finally, according to the press release, it sounds like there will be an effort to get a cigar on the market by IPCPR, but not a guarantee.  In the release Huber says ” “possibility, but not a probability”.

Best of luck to Jon and his team.  I look forward to witnessing this journey.   In the interim, for a great inside look at the person Jon Huber, I encourage you to read GC Puffs’ interview with him.