The sweet smell of success: It's not just a cliche to Joe Slawek '72 CBA and the company of which he is founder and president, Flavors of North America. It literally perfumes the air, both within and around the company's headquarters in Carol Stream. Exhaust fumes in the parking lot and other odors from nearby manufacturing facilities quickly give way to the aromas of candy, cake, popcorn and pizza.

But you quickly learn that lunch will have to be acquired elsewhere. Only a small quantity of food is actually prepared in the facility, and none of it is intended for public consumption. Rather, FONA's 120 employees create the essence of many foodstuffs: the flavors that make the mouth water and leave a pleasing taste on the palate. It's like duplicating the juice of the pomegranate or the part of the pulp that gives pepper its "pop."

FONA creates flavors for a wide variety of products, many of which are considered household names and include some of the world's biggest food and pharmaceutical companies. To avoid making competitors unhappy, the names on the company's extensive client list are kept confidential. However, you can be certain you have some products with FONA flavorings on your own kitchen shelves. During Halloween, many of the treats that you hand out have flavorings prepared in Carol Stream. And your pets may very well enjoy their own meals, thanks to the flavors prepared by FONA chemists. A walk through these laboratories offers a variety of delectable scents, along with the sight of candies being mixed, snack bars being assembled and teas being prepared.

Slawek began to acquire a discriminating sense of smell and a taste for the food business while growing up with seven younger brothers and sisters on Chicago's Northwest Side.

"After I graduated from St. Patrick High School, there was no question that I would attend college in Chicago and get a job. My parents had to save their money in case they had a brighter child," Slawek jokes from his corner office, sitting at an ornate wooden desk with a laptop and personal digital assistant in front of him, as well as a maze of wires that connect him to the company's worldwide network, which extends to facilities in Canada, Mexico and the United Kingdom.

While he was still in high school, Slawek's parents found him a part-time job at Food Materials, a Chicago-based company, from which a similar sweet odor drifted over the Chicago River. "At 16 years old, I was sweeping floors and extracting vanilla from beans," he says.

Eventually, Slawek worked in the company's laboratories, which led him to choose chemistry as his major when he enrolled at UIC in the late 1960s. He found commuting to school and then heading to work another kind of good mixture.

"I worked the second shift, and my employer was very understanding about giving me time off if I was behind in my classes and needed to study for a test," he recalls. "Plus, the life experience that I acquired on the job made my studies — especially in marketing classes — much more meaningful. So it was all a very positive blend for me."

Marketing classes appeared on Slawek's class schedule after his grades in chemistry began to decline, and it became clear to him that he wasn't cut out to be a scientist. His decision to switch his course of study was more pragmatic than scientific.

"I took a look at the job listings in the placement office, and I noticed that chemistry majors were earning $8,500, while marketing majors started at $11,000," explains Slawek. "Plus, there was no language requirement for marketing majors, and if I stayed with chemistry, I'd have to take another year of French. So that was how I made one of my most important life choices."

Accordingly, he moved from the plant to the sales department at Food Materials. "I eventually became their number-one salesperson," says Slawek. He also became an assistant to the president and managed the company's sales activities.

That went on until 1987, when Slawek took a plunge into the great unknown to establish FONA.

"Some people would say it was very risky, at the age of 37, to leave a very comfortable and secure position and take an 80 percent pay cut," Slawek reflects. "In fact, I was suddenly making about the same amount of money I was previously paying in taxes. But I believed there was a place in the international market for a company that was small, independent, service-oriented and highly technical."

On the technical side, one of FONA's challenges was to not only make a product taste good but also to keep that flavor stable for a long period of time. A cake mix, for example, might sit on a pantry shelf for a year before it is used. It's all about offering food products that are attractive and healthy to the consumer while making them reliable and profitable for their manufacturers.

Slawek says he was too busy working and studying to participate in the student protests that marked the late 1960s and early 1970s. But an early awareness of those social issues became the foundation for a belief in what he now calls "servant leadership." He explains that FONA's primary goal is to serve three important constituents: customers, employees and stockholders.

"We very much want to identify the customers who will be using a product and customize the flavor for their tastes," says Slawek. "A child is likely to prefer a pancake syrup that is sweeter and thicker, while an adult might select a product with a more sophisticated taste that has a texture similar to real maple syrup. Part of developing flavors is doing test groups, which can be more complicated than you might think."

Emphasis on providing products and services that satisfy individual preferences has resulted in double-digit growth for FONA over the past decade. In the production area, flavors are manufactured in whatever form the client wants: powder, liquid, paste or emulsion. If a product needs to be sweeter, FONA's chemists can add sweetening agents. If something needs to have its bitterness removed, the appropriate flavorings are added. FONA also offers a line of certified kosher flavorings for those who observe particular religious restrictions, as well as certified organic flavorings for consumers who prefer natural foods.