Tom Weborg, co-founder of Java City, likens his experience in the coffee industry as flying on a “magic-carpet ride.”

Weborg, alumnus of Sacramento State, has brought his specialty coffee to Sac State’s campus for years and credits his success to his well-rounded education and luck in finding the right spouse at the right time.

Weborg said he was involved in his family-owned coffee business, Stirling Restaurant Coffee Service, in his younger years before he knew what he was going to do with his life.

“You don’t know what the right things to do are. You’re going to just start doing them. In my situation, I worked very, very hard for about 20 years and it wasn’t until I started roasting my own coffee, selling it by the cup and being in a specialty coffee business that my energy and effort really played out for me,” Weborg said.

Students should watch out for opportunities in places they may not expect success to be, Weborg said.

He always thought coffee was a means to an end – not a career.

Although, it is clear now, he said, that Java City was in his destiny.

“I’m a firm believer that energy and effort over time, if you’re in the right business, will pay off,” Weborg said. “You can bust your anal in the wrong business and it might not be a success.”

Weborg said it was because of his wife that the idea of Java City came into existence in 1985. He met her, Sandra Singer, at their McClatchy High School reunion, and then they started dating in the “80s.

Weborg said Singer not only became his wife later, but also his own business guru.

“She said, “Why don’t we start roasting our own coffee? I really don’t like your coffee – it doesn’t taste good. I like specialty coffee.’ So we started exploring various ways to do that and we came upon the idea of beginning our own business, which ultimately turned out to be Java City.

It all started with this little roasting operation we opened up on the corner of 18th and Capital,” Weborg said.

Driven by his wife’s distinct taste in coffee, Weborg started his very first micro-roasting operation in Midtown. Within six years, the couple owned six Java Citys in Sacramento.

Java City was later purchased by the Venture Capital firm in 1993.

Singer and Weborg remained investors in the company until it was sold to a company in Dublin, Ireland. Weborg remained a consultant of Java City until he retired in March 2009.

He described Java City’s growth as being almost magical, as it boomed during America’s coffee revolution.

“In terms of size, you start one store and you don’t think you’re going to go anywhere further than that. You just want to sort of be successful and get your money back.” Weborg said. “Then, all of a sudden, you have six stores and the next day you’re bought out.”

Singer said their joint success, as in most businesses, was a surprise.

“When you open any new business you’re just sort of excited to be in business the next day,” Singer said. “You can’t really know what will be and so you put everything into it … The goal is to hopefully continue to be in business in a positive way.”

Singer said a large part of their success is due to Weborg’s impeccable timing and work ethic.

“I think Tom has the wherewithal to not take something on until he has what it takes to make it happen,” Singer said. “I had been bugging him to do something in the gourmet coffee long before Java City started and I think he knew when the time was right for Sacramento.”

Likewise, Weborg described himself as being a really lucky “sales guy.”

“I feel very fortunate to have been doing the right thing at the right time with the right person,” Weborg said. “There have been a lot of things that Sandra and I talked about doing that didn’t include roasting coffee. I mean why that? Yes, I was involved in that business before but I was lucky that I met her. It was lucky that she knew about specialty coffee … I feel very blessed and fortunate that our paths crossed.”

Weborg said he admits that his vision did not materialize out of sheer luck.

His experiences at Sac State earned him a bachelor’s degree in marketing and business.

“I credit CSUS for giving me a very round exposure to all aspects of business that a young person going out in the world would need,” Weborg said. “The university exposed me to many aspects of business that I would come into contact with as entrepreneur. That roundness of knowledge, I think, is very, very important.”

While several Java City employers said they knew a lot about Java City’s history, some said they knew much less about the life of their retired boss.

Those who do recall their interactions with him remember them as being pleasant.

Frances Swengel, supervisor of the Java City at the Union Station, said she knew Weborg as a qualified, sociable leader.

“He didn’t make you feel small when you talked to him,” Swengel said. “I’ve met him only once or twice but he was nice. He was very professional, very respectful.”

Singer also said Weborg’s sociability helped create a lighthearted bond among his employees.

“He had tremendous people skills and was the kind of person that people tended to like, whether they worked for him, whether he met them for the first time or worked for him over periods of time,” Singer said.

Although Weborg was part of the Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity, he said he was not involved in frat parties.

He focused on completing an average of 15.5 units per semester, until he graduated in 1964.

“When I got out of school, I knew about finance. I knew about accounting. I knew about law. I mean I took various bits of that information as a tool when I went out to work for myself,” Weborg said. “I knew where to go as a result of my education.”

Weborg has gone far in life, even as a retiree. He has served on two public bank corporations in the past 10 years.

Today, he serves on Sac State’s business school advisory council and is the president of the Crocker Art Museum Association’s board of directors.

Weborg is also helping raise funds for the expansion of the museum, which will triple its size and be completed in October 2010.

Looking back at his Sac State experiences, Weborg said he not only values his bachelor’s degrees in marketing and business but also the life skills he gained.

“I think I became confident from CSUS,” Weborg said. “I would go back to school if I could learn something similar to that in four years. It’d be worth it to me, knowing I could come away from CSUS with something in my bag that I could rely on for myself. No matter what I do, whether it’s making money or helping to run the Crocker Arts Association.”

The self-confidence he developed in and outside of his business classes was priceless, he said.

“I wasn’t intimated by people because you know I spent four years talking in class, meeting different professors, meeting business leaders,” Weborg said. “I don’t care if I’m talking to Gov. (Ronald) Reagan, which I have done, or whether I’m talking to city council. I don’t get easily intimidated and I think it’s just because I became comfortable with myself after attending Sac State.”

Weborg said despite being a 67-year-old retiree, he finds happiness in the simplicity of his current life.

“Now I’m trying to unwind things so that life becomes a little bit simpler – simple is good,” Weborg said. “I used to work 50 to 60 hours a week. I sort of toned it down; it was necessary.”

He travels about 60 days a year, manages his own investments, plays golf, enjoys his grandchildren and will carry on as such until he reaches “the big 99.”‘

“The big 99 is when you die,” Weborg said. “All the things I’m doing now I’m going to continue to do until the big 99.”

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