Mario Pastega

Mario Pastega (1916–2012) was an American businessman and philanthropist. A soft drink bottler in the state of Oregon for nearly six decades, Pastega was elected to the Beverage World Hall of Fame in 2002. Pastega is best remembered as a patron of education and as the funder and namesake of the Mario Pastega House, a hostel in Corvallis, Oregon offering low cost or free accommodations to families of hospitalized patients in that town.

Mario Pastega was born December 12, 1916 in Weed, California. He was the son of a cobbler named Romano Pastega and his wife, the former Giuseppina Cunial, who worked as a maid. His parents emigrated from a town in the Italian Alps to the United States in 1907, eventually making their way west to open up a shoe repair shop in Weed. Mario worked for his father in the shoe repair store from the age of 12.

Pastega grew up in the home speaking Italian as his first language, learning English only after being enrolled in school in Weed. Pastega was raised a Roman Catholic and remained an active member of the Catholic Church throughout his life.

Pastega trained as a legal transcriptionist, working variously as a court clerk and court reporter, taking trial transcriptions.

Pastega married the former Alma Solari (1917–2008) in April 1938. Together the couple raised five children. The couple's three sons each followed their father into the soda bottling business, each managing one of the company's three plants.

In 1948 Pastega began his ultimate career path when he purchased a half share in the Pepsi-Cola bottling plant of Klamath Falls, Oregon from his wife's brother. The Pastega family remained in that Southern Oregon town until 1961, when the family's bottling empire was expanded through purchase of the Pepsi-Cola bottling plant in Corvallis, Oregon. Pastega and his family subsequently moved to Corvallis to manage that facility.

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