Founder & Owner, Dan Cox

Dan started his career in coffee at a start-up coffee roasting company in 1981. He held numerous positions including retail clerk, roaster, street sales and culminating as VP and junior partner.

Starting in the mid 1980’s Dan volunteered his talents and was elected as President of the International Coffee Development Group and then was elected as the only three-term President of the Specialty Coffee Association of America 1985-88. In 1992, Dan was named “Man of the Year” and received the Distinguished Service Award from the Specialty Coffee Association of America.

Dan created Coffee Enterprises in 1992 and expanded with Coffee Analysts in 1994. Coffee Enterprises was created to be the administrative company for Coffee Extracts & Ingredients as well as Coffee Analysts. High level strategic coffee consulting and expert legal defense projects are the main products.

Coffee Analysts is the largest independent coffee testing facility in the United States. Primarily concerned with physical, chemical and sensory analysis of all types of coffee in any form, Coffee Analysts is recognized as the leader in this field with clients ranging from multinationals to small coffee companies.

He was elected the first President of the Board of Advisors for the non-profit organization, Coffee Kids.

In 2003 he was elected Chairman of the Board of the prestigious Coffee Quality Institute, which is comprised of thirteen trustees from four countries.

In June 2005 Dan was a featured speaker at the International Coffee Organization’s annual meeting (London) where he was the first American to present a topic since the US re-joined the organization after a 13-year hiatus.

Also in June 2005 Dan gave the keynote address to the Canadian Coffee Association’s annual convention in Toronto, Canada.

Dan has traveled to numerous coffee growing countries and has led international tours to coffee estates in Africa, Central America, Hawaii, and Jamaica. In 1995, he was a featured presenter at the World Coffee and Cocoa Symposium in Venice, Italy, and was a speaker at the Coffee and Tea Presentations in Vienna, Austria. In December of 1997, Dan was the featured speaker at Cafe Colombia in Bogota. In 2004, Dan traveled to Guatemala, where he gave a presentation to the XV Guatemalan National Coffee Congress on trends and new products in the coffee industry. While there, he was interviewed by the BBC and appeared on the “Good Morning Guatemala” radio program.

In 1996 Dan co-founded Grounds for Health, a non-profit organization with the mission of providing health care services, specifically cervical cancer screening clinics, to women in coffee producing areas. To date, over 14,000 women have been treated.

Over the past 26 years, Dan has been involved in virtually all aspects of the coffee trade through positions he has held at major coffee companies. He has established an international reputation as a source of information on consumer trends, pricing, marketing, and product handling right from the source through wholesale and retail channels. He is one of a few authorities on coffee legal matters, acting as an expert witness. In part through articles he has written for leading trade and consumer journals, along with numerous public appearances, Dan has achieved a high level of recognition and respect throughout the coffee industry. He has conducted “How to Cup Coffee” seminars at the prestigious Culinary Institute of America in New York. He has been interviewed frequently on National Public Radio and television (FOX and ABC), and has acted as a consultant for coffee-related articles appearing in USA Today, Business Week, The Chicago Tribune and other national publications. Finally, Dan is an avid wine, cigar and Harley Davidson/Porsche enthusiast who has been featured at the Wine Spectator’s “Wine Weekend” and the Cigar Aficionado’s “Big Smoke” events.

Dan holds a BA from Norwich University and served as a Captain in the US Army. He has EMT ambulance training and is a competitive racquetball player. He lives in Shelburne, Vermont, with his wife, Casey, and has one daughter.

Paul W. deLima III, Director of Coffee Operations

Paul’s work in the coffee industry began in 1993 when he became the fourth generation of “Paul deLimas” to enter his family’s coffee roasting business. Over the next fourteen years, Paul worked in nearly all of the departments of the Paul deLima Coffee Company, including manufacturing, distribution, sales and marketing, quality assurance and finance. During his tenure there he developed a keen interest in green coffee and focused on learning the areas of the business directly associated with green coffee. In 1999 he became Green Coffee Manager, assuming responsibility for all forecasting, procurement, logistics, blending, and quality assurance of the company’s green coffee.

Paul joined Coffee Analysts as Director of Coffee Operations in the fall of 2006. He continues to expand his coffee knowledge through visits to producing countries and regular interactions with importers and exporters.

Paul holds a BA from Lewis and Clark College and an MBA from Syracuse University.

Sensorial Laboratory Manager

After a stint in the US Navy, Thomas graduated from Western Washington University with a BA degree in 1982 and began work in the petroleum industry as a petroleum inspector and oil refinery operations technician. During this period he traveled to the Middle East, Orient, and Northern and Southern Europe, and while in Italy Thomas discovered espresso, thus beginning his career in coffee. Learning about espresso machines and espresso preparation with a Seattle espresso machine manufacturer, he became interested in coffee roasting.
Thomas settled in the Gulf Coast of Mississippi and founded a coffee roasting company. Five years and two hurricanes later, he then departed to the Northeast to take a roastmaster position with a start-up company in Buffalo. An opportunity came up to return to Seattle, and Thomas was offered a roastmaster/plant manager position with a specialty coffee company. After traveling to origin producing countries and participating in international cupping events, he found himself cupping more than roasting and decided to pursue the sensory side of the coffee industry. This spring he moved to Vermont to fill the sensory lab manager position.
Thomas enjoys music, wines and winemaking, gardening and rescuing wayward Dobermans with his wife Yoshi.

Physical Laboratory Manager

Eric studied Quality Improvement Management at the University of Minnesota prior to moving to Vermont in 1996. After working for half a decade in Special Education at a middle school in Richmond, Vermont, he earned a Business Administration degree in Operations and HR from the University of Vermont. Eric was the Operation Managers for the Zota Soda Company which produces a line of organic-green-tea-based soda. His responsibilities included raw materials research and acquisition, production scheduling, managing the laboratory, conducting QA product testing, and product line R&D.
Eric joined the Coffee Analysts team in spring 2007 as the Physical Laboratory Manager and is a member of the cupping panel. He has had the privilege of tasting various coffees around the world on his extensive travels both domestically and abroad.
Eric lives in South Burlington, Vermont with his two sons, Aland and Jagr.

Sensory Laboratory Specialist

David is a native Vermonter who joined the Coffee Analysts Sensory Team in 2001. Prior to joining Coffee Enterprises, he traded world commodity futures, including coffee contracts, for a private investor in Boston. Making a complete career change in the mid 1980, David moved to Monterey Bay in California where he owned a Healing Studio in Carmel.

David returned to Vermont in the early 1990 and became involved in health activism issues. He continues his work in community planning for the Vermont Department of Health and the Center for Disease Control & Prevention, helping to develop strategies to meet the needs of people and their families living with chronic illness and disease in rural states.

After attending the SCAA in Boston in 2003, David began doing more extensive work at Coffee Analysts. He continues to gain much knowledge and experience sorting green coffee from origin & cupping coffee daily. He regularly sample roasts greens on our Jabez Burns & Sons sample roasters for evaluation in our cupping room. In November, 2005 he successfully completed 3 SCAA Skill Building Workshops for Roasting, Brewing Fundamentals & Comparative Cupping. He is also a Certified Brewing Technician. In January 2006, David joined a group of people on a Coffee Harvest Tour as guests of the Specialty Coffee Association of El Salvador.

David spends time on the weekends with his family and his woodworking endeavors or in Montreal, just an hour and a half away. After all these years he remains steadfast to a cup of full-bodied Sumatran coffee.

Peter Montane, Laboratory Technician

Peter is a graduate of Sterling College and a Vermont resident. He gained practical knowledge in laboratory techniques from previous work experience in a variety of scientific fields, ranging from limnology to pharmaceuticals. Having joined the quality control team with no prior coffee background, Peter is now a key member of the Physical Testing branch of Coffee Analysts.