ARMANDO CASCIATI
(Artist, Entrepreneur, Visionary)
With a paint brush in his hand and the smell of oil colors on his skin, Armando Casciati is an example of perseverance and strength. His story reflects the pain of injustice, but also the hope that lives in artists’hearts and never fades away. This is the story of a man full of adventure and a life of talent that made him grow from a humble boy to a successful admired man.
Armando was born in Italy, Milan in 1942. He lived with his father, brother and mother, who suffered from Alzheimers. She would feed Armando chocolate covered chicken because she had forgotten the traditional Italian recipes. Nevertheless, Armando ate what his mother would cook and interestingly enough, liked it.
Finishing high school, Armando went to the obligatory “military service” in weapons, infantry, cavalry and Alpine (mountain infantry). By the end of his military service, as a natural adventurer Armando left his country to become a purser on a “Line C” cruiser. He worked at sea for two years. Back ashore, he started a career as a salesman for Singer Business Machines. During his first trip to the USA he noticed that his English was not good enough, so he decided to move to Toronto, Canada, leaving a good job in Italy for a new life as an immigrant.
At the beginning of his journey, in this new country with a different language and culture, Armando started working in a shoe store as a sales person. After a while he found that he was quite talented in the art of journalism and this talent helped him land a job at an Italian newspaper in Toronto. Eventually he became a publisher for the magazine 7 GIORNI TV.
Two years later when he turned 30, Armando returned to Milan to restart as salesman for Singer B.M. He was then promoted to Branch Manager in Bologna and eventually became the Marketing Director of the Singer Business Machine Company.
Looking for new challenges, he accepted a job offer as an assistant to the Director of an International courier company called Purolator International Systems. Here, he became the sole Manager the very first day of his new job when the Director who hired him suddenly resigned. Later, he opened his own domestic courier company, with an initial capital of 100 dollars and his mother as a partner.
He was the founder, manager, employee and sole owner. With a Ford Fiesta, but no business license, Armando always invented creative ways to get the mail delivered. Whether he was running away from officers at airports, officers at frontiers or using bicycles and his small car, he made sure that the mail was always delivered on time.
He then bought the courier service Purolator in Italy, creating the brand “ExecutiveTrasporti” and developing the network with an aggregation of franchisees (ending 20 years later with more than 100 independent branches with a total of two thousand employees). He also started minor businesses, like a Travel Agency (Executive Viaggi), a Gym (Superbody) and a Leasing Company (Mini Leasing).
In 1992 (October, 12), he was awarded a University degree in Economics (Laurea Honoris Causa) in recognition of his achievements in the field of business. During this period, Armando’s love for art and creativity induced him to pursue a jewelry and gold venture and with the help of an old expert in the sector, they founded the goldsmith called Baruffi SRL. By 1998 the company had grown in popularity and caught the attention of Gucci which hired them to be designers and eventually bought them out.
Armando decided he was going to sell Executive Trasporti to a subsidiary of the Royal British Mail, which recently changed the name of the company to GLS-EXECUTIVE TRASPORTI. Currently, GLS is still the main courier company operating in Italy and is preparing to celebrate its 40 th anniversary in 2017.
Leaving his European life behind, Armando decided to adventure into the new world once more. From Panama in 1992 to Ecuador 1994, he finally settled in Sosua, Dominican Republic in 2000, a small town unknown to many. There he did what he has always done and what he loves doing the most: painting.
After a while he decided to follow his entrepreneurial and artistic heart by investing in many projects and helping Sosua’s economy. He opened three hotels, two discos, a diaper factory, a gym, a printing company and created Costa Norte Network TV, one of the most viewed news channels on the North Coast of the Dominican Republic.
He created jobs for more than 300 people in this small town and tried to help as many in the community as he could. Armando contributed heavily to the reconstruction of the town park, built a modern Convention Center and helped create the Casa de Cultura in Sosua.
He traveled the Americas, Asia, Africa and Europe and learned English, German, French and Spanish. He helped people go to college and graduate without debt and created opportunities for many. However, on the morning of September 13, 2014 Armando disappeared. His daughters received a call from their mother saying that Armando had vanished. With desperation and tears Belquizinet Oglivie, Armando’s ex-wife, spoke on national TV about his disappearance. 48 hours later, his family discovered that he had been “expelled” from the country. The real cause for it is still unknown today.
Armando was stripped of his rights as a resident for political reasons. One single bureaucrat of the Dominican Republic didn’t want him to stay any longer in the country. A year later and after three sentences in his favor, Armando still hasn’t received an answer as to why he had been “expelled” and has not been able to return home.
Looking over his apartment view in Florida where he lives now, Armando hasn’t stopped striving for the justice he and his loved ones deserve. He keeps helping the community and has opened new entrepreneurial paths in the United States and in Nigeria to produce jobs and provide opportunities for many. Armando has taught us that real success is not based in the money you make, but in the impact and changes you create in a world that will outlive us all.
He has taught us that staying quiet is for the weak and that change always starts with someone who decides to speak up. In his veins flows the blood of an activist, an artist, an inventor and of a man who will never stop striving for more.
Let’s see what new thing he will surprise us with next.
Thank you, Armando.
Elsa Cristina 