Who's Who - Mo Siegel and Wyck Hay

Morris "Mo" Siegel was born in 1950 and grew up in Palmer Lake, Colorado. An entrepreneur from the start, at age 8 he was already picking wild berries and selling them to his neighbors. Siegel is of Jewish descent, yet he attended The Abbey, a monastery and college prep school in Canon City. He briefly attended Western State College in Gunnison (and later did some coursework at University of Colorado in Boulder.) He worked at Mother's Natural Food Store in Aspen.

Wyck Hay was a senior at the University of Colorado when he was invited to hike with friends in the Rocky Mountain to pick wild herbs. He and his girlfriend Lucinda Ziesing joined Mo and his wife-to-be Peggy on such a trip. The result was that in 1969 Hay and Siegel decided to launch a company. Hay never completed his senior year of school.

Siegel and Hay intended to create tisanes that would improve health and sold a used Volkswagon to finance the effort. The legend is that they handpicked the herbs, dried them on old screen doors, cut them up with paper cutters, and packaged them in hand-sewn muslin bags. In an effort to conserve their very limited resources they obtained scrap telephone wire from the phone company, removed the copper wire, and used the plastic sheathing to tie the bags. The tisanes were offered through local health food stores. In the first year, 10,000 bags of "MO's 36 Herb Tea" were sold to Green Mountain Grainery in Boulder, CO. The company was named Celestial Seasonings because of an old nickname of Ziesing's. She was so attractive that kids used to say that she must have been "seasoned in heaven."

In 1970, Celestial Seasonings switched from muslin bags to paper bags and in 1971 they began sourcing herbs world wide. That year, Hay's brother John joined the company adding some important financial resources as well as his business degree. There were 6 employees when the company incorporated in 1972. By 1974 they passed over $1 million in sales. The company grew substantially over the years and in 1982 it was named on of the "100 Best Companies to Work for in America."

Siegel and Hay continued on as leaders of the company throughout these years and were preparing for a $12 million Initial Public Offering (IPO). In 1983, they faced their most challenging moment. Siegel has since said it was his most crushing business experience. Celestial Seasonings had its first major recall, 6,000 cases of Comfrey tea, after a woman drinking it experienced nausea and blurred vision. A natural toxin was discovered in the tea. It should be noted that the woman had brewed the tea at 18 times the recomended strength. Comfrey is now banned in the US. (It was not at the time.) In the wake of the recall, the IPO was canceled.

This was a major turning point for the company. Instead of going public, Celestial Seasonings was purchased by Kraft Foods in 1984 for $40 million. Hay left the company at this point and took a few years off to relax. He later went on to launch a number of new companies including a cable installation group and startups developing energy saving devices. Most recently he has been working on launching a new line of beverages - KaBoom organic energy drinks and Osteo (a health drink designed to provide extra calcium for women.)

Meanwhile, Siegel stayed on with Celestial Seasonings through their first two years with Kraft. He resigned in 1986. In 1988, Kraft attempted to sell the company to Lipton but was blocked on antitrust grounds after a challenge by R.C. Bigelow. The local management bought the company back from Kraft later that year and in 1991, Siegel was re-hired as CEO. In 1993, 10 years after the intended date, the company had its IPO.

In 2000, Celestial Seasonings merged with Hain Food Group - a natural food company and became known as Hain Celestial Group. (Hain Celestial Group includes such brands as Arrowhead Mills, Earth's Best, Westbrae, and Soy Dream). Siegel stayed on as VP for 2 years, retiring (again) in 2002. The company currently has 1500 employees worldwide and sells more than 1.2 billion cups of tea per year.

Siegel has continued to be active in the business world as a member of 4 boards - Whole Foods, CamelBak, Avid Health, and Annie's Homegrown. He is also on the boards of the non-profit Jesusonian Foundation (a religious foundation focused on “spiritual ministry” and the “religion of Jesus”) and the Urantia Foundation (publisher of the Urantia Book, a book which “claims to have been presented by celestial beings as a revelation to our planet, Urantia.” -- References from the Urantia Foundation website.) He is in his second marriage and has 5 children and 4 grandchildren. He continues to be an active outdoorsman. He had been an avid biker for years and then became passionate about hiking. In 2005, he finished climbing all 54 of the Colorado Fourteeners (mountains higher than 14,000 feet). He has co-written two books - Cooking with Tea (1996) and Herbs for Health and Happiness (2000.)

Celestial Seasonings has recently developed a new logo and new packaging and has launched a line of whole leaf pyramid teabags under the brand Saphara. They have also started an online book club. In January of this year they announced that they will also be selling organic, Fair Trade whole bean coffee.

Boy that's a lot of time and space I just devoted to a company whose tea I don't even really like...

Research for this piece was obtained from:

• “High Tea with Mo Siegel” by Joyzelle Davis, Rocky Mountain News, November 3, 2007


• Boulder History Museum - “New Pioneer 2006 - Mo Siegel”


• DailyCamera.com chat with Mo Siegel


• Referenceforbusiness.com - “Celestial Seasonings, Inc.


• “Spotlight: Wyck Hay: Selling Pep” - San Francisco Chronicle, Nov. 19, 2003

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Taken from http://teapages.blogspot.com/