Gerald Baldwin is an American businessman. He and two other entrepreneurs, Gordon Bowker and Zev Siegl, founded

Starbucks Starbucks Corporation is an American multinational List of coffeehouse chains, chain of coffeehouses and Starbucks Reserve, roastery reserves headquartered in Seattle, Washington. It was founded in 1971 by Jerry Baldwin, Zev Siegl, and Gor ...

in Seattle, in 1971. He is a Sonoma Valley vintner, and co-founder of J. Baldwin Wines.

Career

Jerry Baldwin was born to Rowland Baldwin (1914-1989), a door-to-door milkman, and Patricia Brodeur Baldwin (b. 1923), who worked in data processing for the federal government and

IBM International Business Machines Corporation (using the trademark IBM), nicknamed Big Blue, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, and present in over 175 countries. It is ...

, found his life unsettled as a teenager when his parents divorced and his mother remarried. Baldwin went to 3 different high schools before enrolling at the

University of San Francisco The University of San Francisco (USF) is a Private university, private Society of Jesus, Jesuit university in San Francisco, California, United States. Founded in 1855, it has nearly 9,000 students pursuing undergraduate and graduate degrees ...

. He learned the

coffee Coffee is a beverage brewed from roasted, ground coffee beans. Darkly colored, bitter, and slightly acidic, coffee has a stimulating effect on humans, primarily due to its caffeine content, but decaffeinated coffee is also commercially a ...

trade from

Alfred Peet Alfred H. Peet (March 10, 1920 – August 29, 2007) was a Dutch-American entrepreneur and the founder of Peet's Coffee & Tea in Berkeley, California, in 1966. Peet is widely credited with starting the specialty coffee revolution in the US. Am ...

, whose store Peet's Coffee And Tea, was the inspiration for Starbucks. Starbucks purchased roasted coffee beans from Peet's during its first year of operation. Baldwin has recalled Peet as being a "very generous" mentor. In 1984, when Peet's was offered for sale, Baldwin led a group of investors, including Bowker, to purchase the company. In 1987, he sold his interests in Starbucks to Howard Schultz and other investors. Baldwin was chairman of Peet's until 2001 when Peet's went public, and he became a director of the company. Baldwin served as director and founding chairman of the Technical Standards Committee of the Specialty Coffee Association of America; president of Association Scientifique Internationale pour le Café (ASIC); and chairman of the Coffee Quality Institute. He was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award by Specialty Coffee Association of America. He is a director of TechnoServe, an NGO working in Latin America and Africa. In 2000, he and his wife,

photographer A photographer (the Greek φῶς (''phos''), meaning "light", and γραφή (''graphê''), meaning "drawing, writing", together meaning "drawing with light") is a person who uses a camera to make photographs. Duties and types of photograp ...

Jane Baldwin, established J. Baldwin Wines, a zinfandel and petite sirah grower and producer located in Sonoma Valley, California.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Baldwin, Jerry Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Starbucks people Businesspeople in coffee Businesspeople from San Francisco University of San Francisco alumni American winemakers American food company founders American chairpersons of corporations Directors of Starbucks Drink company founders