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LEGENDARY ENTREPRENEUR

$Renowned biz leader starts notable career by helping parents during the Depression.

Jeno F. Paulucci, founder of Luigino’s, Inc., and creator of its Michelina’s® brand is frequently called “The Incomparable Entrepre-neur.” During the past year, Jeno has been picking up awards in entrepreneurship all over the world. These are fitting tributes, as Jeno Paulucci is one of the few who positively affected our world. Jeno has created blockbuster companies, advised U.S. Presidents and world leaders and has created jobs for thousands of employees who have never gone on strike or engaged in a slowdown in 59 years.

Lifelong businessman and philanthropist Jeno F. Paulucci, creator of such brands as Chun King Chinese foods, Jeno’s Pizza Rolls, and Michelina’s frozen entrees, has been honored by Ernst & Young as the recipient of the firm’s inaugural International Lifetime Achievement Award for Activism, Entrepreneurship and Leadership for his nearly seven decades of civic accomplishment.

Paulucci, 86, whose Paulucci International, Ltd., Inc., is headquartered in Sanford, Florida, was saluted for his lifelong dedication to humanitarian efforts that have shaped a legacy of significant social and economic impact on his employees and on numerous communities and industries.

Introducing the award, John Ferraro, Ernst & Young Vice Chair-man, said: “As we approach the 20th Anniversary of Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year Award, we were looking back at all the previous winners worldwide and their many accomplishments – not just for themselves but for others. They have all created outstanding businesses, but entrepreneurs do so much more. People depend on entrepreneurs to create jobs, to support their communities, and to be examples to others.”

“This inaugural award goes to a very special person, Jeno F. Paulucci,” Ferraro said. “The son of Italian immigrants, he has created, financed or led more than 50 privately held companies, creating more than 70 brands. He has consistently hired the disabled or others deemed unemployable all unionized.”

James S. Turley, Ernst & Young’s Chairman and CEO, commented: “He is a world class entrepreneur who has used his success to further humanitarian efforts in the U.S. and abroad.”His legendary entrepreneurial story begins when he was just 10 years old.
Jeno Francesco Paulucci is the son of Italian immigrants whose father, Ettore, found work in the iron mines and his mother, Michelina, operated a small grocery in their home in Hibbing, Minnesota. A child of the Great Depression, Jeno helped his dirt-poor family survive by selling fruits and vegetables in a local market at age 10. He began a lifetime foods industry career, which led him to create, finance or lead more than 50 privately, held companies and organizations in a career spanning 70 years of entrepreneurship, which continues to this day.

Jeno Paulucci has created more than 70 brands; built and sold companies worth more than $2 billion in today’s dollars - companies such as the Chun King Corporation, Northland Foods, Inc.; the worldwide Cornelius Company, Jeno’s, Inc., City of Heathrow, and others. Today, at age 86, he stills works seven days a week.

His innovations revolutionized the foods industry. He brought us the Chun King Divider Pak and Jeno’s Pizza Rolls, He pioneered domestication of wild rice on his 5,000 acres of Wilderness Farms in Northeastern Minnesota; launched RJR Foods Inc. (later RJR-Nabisco) as its founding Chairman, and is the creative mind behind dozens of patents for processes to prepare and package foods.

His Luigino’s, Inc., producers of Michelina’s (named for his mother) and Budget Gourmet brands, is one of the world’s leading packers of frozen entrees.

Based on his credo that “jobs are the funnel from which flow the benefits of a better over-all economy for all,” in 1990 he arranged financing from city, county, state and federal sources so that he had zero investment in this start-up company.

Jeno wanted to prove that an entrepreneur with a good track record, whose word was his bond, could trade jobs as a commodity for low-interest loans, but never outright dollar grants, from local and federal government agencies. As a result, since 1990 Jeno has created and now operates five foods companies producing frozen entrees, hand-held snacks, pizza and food service products for worldwide markets with cash flow over $100 million a year.

Jeno, who had always held a negative image of bankers because of a lack of faith and support for his early enterprises, took over a local community bank that was going bankrupt. It has grown to become one of the most successful chains of small banks in Northeastern Minnesota - the Republic Banks.

The entrepreneurial legend, who modestly calls himself “just a peddler from the Iron Range,” has advised and personally worked with every American President since Eisenhower, including Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan and Bush.
Always an independent in politics, he has never held political office - by choice. He declined appointment as Secretary of Commerce and as Secretary of Transportation in the cabinets of two Presidents with whom he consulted.

As an employer, he has operated 23 plants worldwide - in the USA, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, England, Germany, Spain and Italy. All plants were unionized, by the Teamsters, Steelworkers, Coal Miners, Foods Handlers, Retail Clerks, Meat Cutters, Stationary Engineers; the Confeder-azione Generale Italiana del Lavoro in Italy and other unions in Germany, Spain and England

Jeno was honored as United States Employer of the Year in 1972 for his employment practices, especially for a total of over 1,000 handicapped and disadvantaged - all unionized, the same as other employees. His demonstrated personal trust affording convicts and addicts a second chance in life has restored many individuals to productive citizenship.

Declaring that “profit is not the only responsibility of business,” he organized and financed NEMO, Inc., (N.E. Minnesota Organization for Economic Education), catalyst for numerous economic development campaigns including the Taconite Amendment to the Minnesota Constitution, which resulted in steel industry investment of nearly $3 billion to revitalize the declining industry and more than $1 billion in tax revenue committed by the “Paulucci Bill” to the mining region’s future. He successfully attacked mining waste disposal practices to establish environmental integrity for the industry and the region.

He founded, financed and led as Chairman and CEO for its first 17 years the National Italian American Foundation, Washington DC, as a positive voice for 25 million Italian Americans and one of the world’s foremost ethnic organizations today. He rebuilt the Madonna del Sasso church near the birthplace of his parents in Italy, under the direction of the Vatican.

Jeno led the Paulucci family in development of Heathrow, a new city of approximately 10 square miles in central Florida that has become the hub of one of America’s fastest growing regions.

A devoted family man, he relies on the steadfast support of Lois Trepanier Paulucci, his wife of 56 years, their three children, four grandchildren and one great-grandchild. Their legacy includes the endowment of the Jeno and Lois Paulucci Family Foundation, dedicated to a more productive life for the poor, disadvantaged and the elderly.
For more on the company and their products, visit www.michelinas.com/.

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