Edward S. Seguine

Class of 2010

Edward S. Seguine was born December 15, 1946, in Long Beach, CA, to Robert and Helen. After attending Montebello Senior High School in California, he went on to the California Institute of Technology, in Pasadena, on a full, four-year North American Aviation Merit scholarship, graduating in 1968 with a B.S. in chemical engineering.

Immediately after graduation, Ed began his career with Procter & Gamble Co., Inc. There he was responsible for five national product introductions and holds several patents, including one for dewaxing high-resistivity oils.

Ed started working at Guittard Chocolate Co. in 1983, as director of research and development, overseeing all aspects of converting specialty beans into chocolate, from roasting through conching. He also played a role in introducing the E. Guittard line of chocolates.

In January 2009, Ed joined Mars Chocolate North America as a Chocolate Research Fellow, working with chocolate liquor and ensuring flavor quality through breeding and development. He represents the company in the international community wherever cocoa and chocolate taste is involved, and has contributed to the sequencing and annotating of the cocoa genome, playing a key role in the identification of flavor attributes.

During his career, Ed has served as an instructor for the National Confectioners Association Candy School at the University of Wisconsin and the Retail Confectioners International Gus Pulakos course in candy manufacturing. Ed has also been a frequent speaker at Pennsylvania Manufacturing Confectioners Association Production Conferences and NCA Technical Conferences. His technical articles have appeared in a number of industry trade publications.

He has been a member of several organizations, including the American Cocoa Research Institute, the International Cocoa Organization and the World Cocoa Foundation. He served the NCA/RCI Nutrition Labeling Committee as both executive and committee chairman.

Ed’s honors include the RCI Henry J. Bornhofft Memorial Award, in 1992, and the Distinguished Service Award from the Chocolate Manufacturers Association. He was presented with the National Kettle Award by the Retail Confectioners Association of Philadelphia in 1994 and was the first recipient of the PMCA Marie Kelso Memorial Award in 1998.

He was honored with the 50th Stroud Jordan Award from the American Association of Candy Technologists, and was bestowed the title of Master Chocolatier Emeritus by RCI in 2003.

Away from the industry, Ed enjoys reading spy novels and being involved with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, where he has served as a Bishop.

He has a brother, Ken, and a sister, Janet. Ed and his wife Kathy have six children: Ed, Bill, Dan, Lynn, Julie and Tom, and eighteen grandchildren.