Patrick Marantette retired from HORN in August after 43 years. On Sept. 25, employees honored the former director and board member.
 
Marantette joined HORN’s sales team in 1975. He was instrumental in establishing the Food/Nutraceuticals Ingredients Group in 1978 and was named president after the company became an employee-owned business.
 
Marantette was a longtime supporter of the National Association of Chemical Distributors; he once served as the organization’s chairman. Under his leadership, HORN was named Outstanding Distributor of the Year and he went on to achieve the Vanguard Award for service to the Chemical Education Foundation.
 
Outside of his business accolades, Marantette played a significant role in the development of California’s You Be the Chemist Challenge, which is an interactive academic contest that encourages students, grades 5-8, to explore chemistry and its real-world applications.
 
The company said that while employees will miss his infectious, cheerful disposition when he routinely walked the HORN office halls to greet each employee every morning, Marantette’s legacy will continue to resonate through the generations of employees he has inspired, the business practices he helped established and the culture he shaped at HORN.