by Dave Warner

Omar de Frias is a bigger-than-life – 6’9′ and 320 pounds – former professional basketball player, NASA analyst, and now an entrepreneur and owner of Fratello Cigars, who has decided to make his way to Little Falls for an exclusive Cigars & Bourbon pairing at Overlook Mansion on October 23, 2021.

He was born in Puerto Rico but was raised in the Dominican Republic, and graduated from the Rochester Institute of Technology in 2002. From there, he went on and obtained his MBA. “In between all of those things, I played professional basketball in the Dominican Republic. While playing pro ball, I realized that was pretty much all I wanted to do.”

Photo submitted – Oscar de Frias with Fratello Cigars.

However, he got injured and decided to change his “NBA dreams for an MBA,” he stated.

While he was back in school, NASA recruited him. “There were over 400 applicants for two positions. I think the fact that I had two undergraduate degrees, marketing, and business management with international relations kind of fit the bill for what they were looking for at that time. I think I was a little more prepared than anyone else.”

Omar had three different jobs while working at NASA for twelve years. “I was doing management of budgets and projects for one group and I was doing a lot of process development, making some of the existing processes better. But at the same time, I was managing the numbers.”

He was selected for a NASA leadership development program. “There were only 25 people in the agency selected for that program. I was selected very early on as a GS-11. It was some of the youngest talent and leaders in the entire agency,” he said.

By the time he was 30 years old, he had been promoted to GS-15. “The average age to have this position is around 50 years old,” he stated. “So it was good. I advanced pretty fast.”

At that point, he was managing a 5 billion dollar project for NASA. “It was about 1/3 of NASA’s budget and I was managing the logistics side of things, which was interesting. I spent seven years in that job.”

One of his friends sent him a video of Steve Jobs giving a commencement address at Stanford and “The way that man spoke and the passion and the delivery of his message about being fired from his own company and then coming back and doing what he did. I was blown away by it. He said the only way to do good work is to love what you do, and I was struggling with doing great work.”

So, in 2016, he decided to start his own business, Fratello Cigars. He rearranged his schedule with NASA so that he’d have free time on Thursdays through Sundays to go and sell cigars.

Believe it or not, he said, “I needed a bigger challenge. I had already gotten to the point where I knew that budget left and right and I knew exactly what I needed to do, so I needed to do more. I can’t sit still and I have to do something all the time.”

“I did a lot of really cool stuff at NASA, but I was struggling with keeping myself engaged and happy with what I was doing,” he said.

His weekend gig started taking off, and he said it was fun. “I’d fly into a destination on a Thursday morning or late on Wednesday, whether it was New York, Texas, or Oklahoma. I’d sell cigars on Friday and Saturday and come back home on Sunday. I did that for two and one-half years.”

He said that after one wife left and with his blood pressure rising, he decided to do just the cigars. “I quit NASA at the end of 2015 and I decided to go full throttle on cigars, and that’s the story.”

Today, Fratello Cigars has tripled its size from 2016 and they are now in 800 retailers nationwide. “We have 18 countries carrying my brand. So, we’re at a very healthy stage and we keep on growing. It’s a lot of fun.”

When asked why Little Falls, Omar said, “Daniel (Preston) can be pretty persuasive and one thing that I’ve known since I’ve met this man, is that nothing really surprises me. Usually, when he gets behind something it’s actually going to be pretty damn successful.”

“What I saw with Widow Jane and Cacao Prieto and what I saw with the knowledge and passion he gives to every one of these things. That’s the kind of motivation you need when you’re doing entrepreneurship or anything new, especially in Little Falls,” he said.

Omar said the first place he thinks about when it comes to making money is a big city, not Little Falls New York. “I’m going to put my money on him. He can be pretty persuasive and he loves Little Falls.”

All profit from the event will be donated to the Little Falls Youth and Family Center’s Food Pantry.

If you are interested in attending, tickets are available at cigarsandbourbon.eventbrite.com or you can visit movamoca.org/fratelloevent.