2021 – Leslie L. Blau

Leslie L. Blau

Presented by Chairperson, Elsa Howerth, on June 10, 2021 at the Annual Meeting held virtually via Zoom.

Leslie’s career and flavor industry involvement

• President, The Society of Flavor Chemists (SFC)  1994-1995, Board 1991-1996
• President, FEMA  2006-2007, Board 1999-2008
• President, IOFI  2008-2010, Board 2003-2011
• Vice President, PFW/Hercules  1974-1992  (18yrs)
• Vice President, Givaudan/Tastemaker  1992-1997  (5 yrs)
• Vice President, Firmenich 1999-2009 (10 yrs)
• Consultant, General Flavors 2009-2017 (8 yrs)

At the virtual meeting presentation, Elsa Howerth read Leslie’s brief biography as published in The Flavor Industry by Earl Merwin.  Displayed on the zoom screen was a collage of past and present pictures of Leslie depicting his early life in Romania, various events of his involvement in the flavor industry, and his immediate family today.  She read messages from Nick Feuerstein, Carl Holmgren, and Bipin Khara.  Dennis Kujawski spoke of his fond memories working with Leslie.  Finally, Elsa spoke to Leslie with her words … “Being the Chairperson with the privilege of choosing a Golden Blotter Award recipient was a real opportunity for me to recognize a well-deserving member.  In my research, I found that Leslie Blau was long over-due for this recognition.  His achievements in his career are impressive.  His high level of volunteerism in the flavor industry is unmatched which makes him even more impressive. How could anybody miss this or pass him up for this award?  As I reflected on this, I feel like this opportunity was reserved for me.  Leslie, you don’t know me from Adam.  But I consider myself an indirect descendant of you in terms of my flavorist career.  Through your ambassadorship of the SFC, you cultivated a true friendship with Ishikawa-san of  T.Hasegawa in Japan, which brought him to join the SFC, which in turn brought Unno-san to join the SFC, who then sponsored me to the SFC.  This happened in the mid-90’s at a time when the SFC was not known in California.  Inspired by your efforts to spread the word about the SFC, we, at T.Hasegawa USA, became passionate about the SFC and longed to have a meeting established in California.  We did a grassroots effort to spread the word to our flavorist peers in California.  Today, we have a strong California representation, adding to the strength, vibrancy, and longevity of the SFC.  Your passion for the SFC and acts of kindness had all of us down the line paying it forward.  At the 1994 Flavor Symposium, while you were VP, I took my interview for apprentice membership.  Now 27 years later and as Chairperson, bestowing you the Golden Blotter Award today, I am truly grateful to have this opportunity to give you this recognition.  Thank you for your contributions to the SFC, the flavor industry, and to the careers of many, including mine.”  Elsa was choked up as she concluded her presentation.

Upon receiving the award, Leslie said… “First and foremost, I want to thank you, Elsa, and Paul, and the entire Society Of Flavor Chemists Board for bestowing on me this prestigious award.  I appreciate and humbly accept it.  I also want to thank Dennis, Nick, Carl, and Bipin for their wonderful words.  This profession and this industry have been incredibly good to me.  By serving both, The Society and the industry has been just a token of my appreciation.  I did it with all my heart and my ability. I am happy to see a vibrant Flavor Chemist society.  My hat’s off to the present board and previous boards to keep the energy and vibrancy of the Society ongoing.  I remember the joy in my early years to attend the meetings in The Chemists’ Club in Manhattan.  You rub shoulders with the big names like Heim, many of them founding members of the Society.  As treasurer, I was happy to have a thousand dollars in the Society’s account.  Now look at your accounts today.  Hard work pays off.  It is said, everyone has a guardian angel.  I believe I have two.  My two guardian angels are Colman Goldhammer and Gerry Kraus.  They were the ones that started me in this unique profession.  They took a chance with a penniless immigrant from Romania and launched me to a bright future.  Working with and for the best of our industry like Colman, Gerry, Paul Rice, Jerry DiGenova, Cliff Desch, Dick Potter, Alve Tolio, Carly Weiner, Ernest Polak just to name a few, shaped me in my career.  My technical background and being a flavorist helped me tremendously in my later management positions, and especially serving on the boards of FEMA and IOFI.  I was able to bring to the front the needs of the flavor industry from the flavorist point of view.  It worked very well.  I travelled the world in my position and I promoted the Society everywhere, but especially in Japan and Elsa mentioned some of that.  Many of our Japanese members joined upon my recommendation.  I always believed and still believe that the position of the flavor chemist was especially important in a flavor company. Yes good relationships with customers, good service, and good consumer insights were also important.  But if you didn’t have a winning formula, you didn’t go very far.  In that regard, when I ran the flavor business in the US for Firmenich, I instituted a formal flavorist training program that was highly successful.  I was the only flavorist member of the Firmenich executive committee.  And I did this inspite of many questions —Why do we train our flavorists?  Do they have the obligation to stay with us?  (Of course, legally we cannot do that.) But my concept was that, we train and other people train, and the industry is better for it.  So we went forward.  We are part of an industry that contributes everyday to the well-being of humanity.  Our industry is very capable of adapting to any needs of our customers and their customers, the consumers.  When I came back from Brazil, everything had to be kosher then halal then GMO-free. When I came back from Japan, everything had to be natural.  The flavorists rose to the occasion and were able to satisfy every need.  On a personal level, I am happily married to my wife, Stephanie, for 54 years.  As the saying goes, behind a successful man, there is even a more successful woman.  In our married life, we moved 11 times, and twice to different continents.  We have 3 children and 9 beautiful grandchildren—all the love of my life.  Presently, we live in Princeton in the house we built exactly the same way the third time.  One in Rocklin County, one in Cincinnati, Ohio, and this one in Princeton, NJ.  Exactly the same house.  Again, I thank you.  And I wish you further success in your professional and personal lives.  I really appreciate this award.  Thank you.”