![]() “I’ve been poor, hungry and determined.Judy Montañez was her husband’s biggest supporter. “But I do have a Ph.D.,” he said before leaving. Puzzled, the student asked where that was, to which Montanez countered with, “Never mind, it’s a private school and you could never get in,” he said as the hometown crowd chuckled at his inside joke. “I teach leadership at a couple of universities, and one time I was speaking at an MBA class when a student asked, ‘Where did you get yours?’ ” It prompted Montañez, who had already concluded his speech, to take the microphone one more time. Then the Ontario native with no high school diploma was given an honorary associate degree from Chaffey College. You were created to stand out,” Montañez said to a standing ovation. “Graduates, remember, you were not created to fit in. In PepsiCo’s 2016 annual report, the company says Frito-Lay’s volume grew 3 percent, “reflecting high-single-digit growth in variety packs, and mid-single-digit growth in trademark Doritos and Cheetos,” offsetting declines in its Sabra joint effort products. Montañez said he started to climb the ladder in management, landing speaking engagements and opportunities to market PepsiCo products.įlamin’ Hot Cheetos continues strong sales even as some school districts banned them because of their addictive and mostly nutritionally vacant qualities. The rest, as they say, is snack food history. The CEO tells him he’ll see him in two weeks. Next thing he knows, he’s calling the CEO and pitching his idea. He and wife made chili, and he garnished his Cheetos. What if I put chili on a Cheeto?’ ” he said. Biting into the corn, with all the fixings, he had his revelation. ![]() The story goes like this: Montañez was grabbing corn from the elote man. His did, a corporate revolution, he told the thousands gathered at the arena. Montañez likes to say all you need is one revelation that will lead to a revolution. Still, how did a front-line worker, who wasn’t even a manager, get the CEO’s attention? “I just thought, if I could get a job at Frito-Lay that would change my legacy,” he said. With the help of his wife, Judy, who could read and write in English, Montañez told her what to say on the application form. Then a friend told him they were hiring at Frito-Lay in Rancho Cucamonga. He candidly shared that he was always worried at that time about his future because he had no education. It’s not something he’s proud of, but his only option was to go to work.īy the time he was 18 years old, he had done everything from pick grapes, clean cars at a car wash, work at poultry factory and as a gardener. Montañez ended up dropping out before earning a high school diploma. We’re all created to stand out,” he said. “That’s when I realized, that as much as I wanted to fit in, it was impossible because none of us were created to fit in. By that Friday, he was selling burritos at school for 25 cents each. The following day she made him two burritos, one for him and one to share with a classmate. Instead, his mother told him to embrace who he was. Ashamed, he put it back in his bag and later told his mother to make a bologna sandwich, like all the kids bring, the next day. “That’s all we spoke.”īut he recalls one day, classmates staring him down for bringing a burrito for lunch. Going to school proved difficult because he only knew how to read and write in Spanish. ![]() ![]() “You were poor, but it was a fun kind of poor - where it didn’t matter what you were wearing where, if you were hungry, there was always a peach tree or orange tree that you could pick from,” he said prior to the graduation ceremony. The family later moved to Ontario, he said. He is one of 11 children, the eldest male. He comes from a modest upbringing his father and grandfather worked in the vineyards of what was then known as Guasti, near Ontario International Airport. Montañez is no stranger to facing adversity. There is no such thing as just a janitor “when you believe in your heart you’re going to be the best janitor in the history of Frito-Lay,” the Ontario native said. The same goes for those who are waiters, drivers or janitors.
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