Richard Montañez is an ex-PepsiCo Executive who is famous for inventing the Flaming Hot Cheeto brand.

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Richard Montañez grew up in a migrant labor camp in Gausti, California, where he supported his family by picking grapes in vineyards and ate shared meals at a communal table among six or seven other families.

He lived with ten siblings in a one-bedroom apartment with before moving to an 800-square foot three-bedroom home.

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Richard went to an all-white school and often had trouble understanding his teachers and peers.

In his memoir, "A Boy, A Burrito, and a Cookie", he recounts the time he was embarrassed because his mother gave him a burrito for lunch.

Since some of the other children hadn't even seen a burrito, he asked his mother to give him a bolgona sandwich.

She responded by giving him two burritos and telling him to give one away to make a friend.

Young Richard used the opportunity to sell them for $0.25 cents a piece.

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Montañez dropped out of school early and worked several low-paying jobs.

He spent time slaughtering chickens, landscaping, and washing cars among other things.

He grabbed a job at the Frito-Lay Rancho Cucamonga plant in California as a janitor in 1976.

He pitched the "Flaming Hot Cheetos" product to the CEO and worked his way up to vice president of multicultural sales for PepsiCo America.

Richard left PepsiCo in 2012 after 35 years of dedication.

He teaches MBA classes at a nearby college in Rancho Cucamonga.

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Richard has provided college scholarships to Latinos and often donates food, clothing, school supplies and other things through the Kits for Kids and Feed the Children charities.

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The Frito-Lay CEO, Roger Enrico, sent a video out encouraging employees to start acting like they owned the company.

When one of the assembly line machines broke and some Cheetos were left bereft of cheese powder, Richard brought some home with him and decided to experiment.

He developed a recipe for spicy Cheetos that was inspired by the popular Mexican street food—elote.

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He called up the company President who agreed to let him pitch his product idea.

So Richard and his wife went the library and checked out books about marketing and business strategies.

Montanez even purchased his first-ever tie for $3 to meet with the executives.

He filled 100 plastic baggies with his concoction, sealed them with a clothing iron, and drew his own logo and design on every single package.

During the presentation an executive asked "How much market share do you think you can get?", trying not to feel out of his depth Richard replied by stretching his arms out and saying: "This much market share!’".

Needless to say, his presentation impressed the CEO.

The snack officially took off in 1992 and eventually became a multi-billion dollar powerhouse brand.

Montañez has been called the Godfather of Multicultural Marketing.

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In 2018 it was announced that Fox Searchlight films had a project in the works about Richard Montañez and his accomplishments in the snack world.

The film was penned by Lewis Colick and produced by DeVon Franklin.

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