CEO of state’s largest Coca-Cola bottler dies

CEO of state’s largest Coca-Cola bottler dies Ronald L. Sellers, head of the Sacramento Coca-Cola Bottling Co. Inc., died Tuesday of respiratory failure. He was 60.
   Sellers, whose family had run the bottling and distribution operation for more than three generations, served as president and chief executive officer for 16 years.
   The firm, with about 475 employees at two operations in Sacramento and Modesto, is the nation's ninth-largest Coca-Cola bottler and the state's only remaining independent Coke bottler. With reported revenues of nearly $95 million last year, the firm serves nine counties in Northern California.
   Sellers, a native son and longtime civic booster in the Sacramento community, had suffered from a long string of health problems related to injuries sustained in a serious car accident more than 40 years ago.
   Born in Sacramento in 1926, Sellers grew up in the family bottling business started by his grandfather, Nathan Sellers. In 1927 the senior Sellers obtained the rights to sell and distribute Coca-Cola for most of the Northern California region.
   Ronald Sellers, who attended Pepperdine University in Southern California, was appointed executive vice president and general manager of Sacramento Coca-Cola in 1973.