Iowa College Grad Behind a Billion-Dollar Coffee Success

Bob Stiller – an East Coast native. He graduated with a bachelor of arts at Parsons College in Fairfield, Iowa, in 1968, and then attended law school in Florida.

In 1972, he and his business partner, Burton Rubin, built a successful rolling-paper company called E-Z Wider. (a play on words from the Clint Eastwood movie “Easy Rider.”) He and his partner sold it in 1980, both receiving over three million dollars.

READ MORE: This Iowa Guy is Getting $1,000 a Day?!

He then ended up in Vermont, had some amazing coffee at a ski resort in 1981, and knew what his next venture would be…coffee.

He bought the company with the money that he had made from selling his rolling paper business. He named his company “Green Mountain Coffee Roasters” – after the mountain range in Vermont, and it eventually became Vermont’s largest business with revenue in the billions.

The Brains Behind the Product

Green Mountain Coffee eventually teamed up with Keurig, the company that invented the K-Cup.

This put Stiller on the path to making Forbes' list of billionaires in 2015. Keurig Dr. Pepper generated $3.92 billion in sales for Q2 2024, though the coffee division struggled more than in previous earnings reports.

What Happened to Parsons College?

It was founded in 1873 and had 34 students in its first year of operation. By 1966 there were over 5,000 students enrolled and the school had one of the highest-paid faculty in the U.S.

Get our free mobile app

But that same year Life magazine published an article criticizing the college and its president...

Enrollment quickly declined, and the college went into millions of dollars in debt and went bankrupt in 1973. One year later the campus was purchased by Maharishi International University.

Do you ever purchase Green Mountain Coffee? Or even Keurig products? If so, now you know some of the Iowa-related backstory!

We don't all want to share our coffee, but how about sharing our hygiene products? Ew...