2002. Interview with Gianfranco Rizzardi, joys and motors

Welcome to the special section “BAM 35 Years.” We are presenting “cult” articles from the Motor Boats archive, starting in 1990. A journey through time among stories unobtainable today, even in the great sea of the internet! A dive into the world of epic moments in motor boating. Here is one of the stories we were most passionate about.

Gianfranco Rizzardi, joys and motors

From Boats to Motor 2002, no. 1, February, pp. 46-49.

Gianfranco Rizzardi recounts the beginnings of his career as an entrepreneur: his passion for motors, his complete dedication to his work, and his intuition for important choices, such as the purchase of the historic and decayed Cantiere Posillipo.

Gianfranco Rizzardi, 48, who is originally from Veneto but was born and raised near San Felice al Circeo, began his climb to success from a machine shop he opened when he was just 19 years old in the port of San Felice. From machine shop to boat storage and from storage to construction in the late 1970s. Burned out stages. Then the years of growth and consolidation. In 1993 the big blow with the rescue from bankruptcy of the historic Posillipo Shipyard. Currently, Rizzardi can count on three production units, all located in the so-called “Blue Triangle” between Sabaudia and San Felice al Circeo, which include Cantiere Posillipo, and a large and efficient facility for the servicing and storage of pleasure boats in Borgo Montenero, the town where its business and unstoppable rise began.

A popular proverb says that “Cheerful man heaven help him.” And Gianfranco Rizzardi has cheerfulness stamped on his face, with that open, contagious smile, witty mustache, lively, cunning eyes, and witty speech. A nice face, a friendly person, a man who has had good fortune in life, a fortune, however, he is keen to point out, he did not wait for it to fall from the sky. He waited for it, if anything, in the workshop, on the construction site. “I have always worked,” he tells us proudly, “every holy day of the year, regardless of Sundays and other public holidays. This is a good basis for us to tell his story. He gladly tells it to us, with warmth and color, as is in his character.

Gianfranco Rizzardi: “I was born in San Felice al Circeo and have always lived around Sabaudia, but my parents were from Veneto and emigrated to this area before the war, at the time of the reclamation of the Pontine Marshes.”

Motor Boats: Were they farmers?
Gianfranco Rizzardi: “Almost ninety percent of the emigrants were farmers; instead, my father and grandfather had established a small construction company. They built houses.”

BaM: How come you did not continue this activity?
G.R.: “Because I lost my father at the age of 7 and then everything changed. It was 1960 and, strange coincidence, that very year the Posillipo Shipyard left the caves of Naples and moved here to Sabaudia. But at that time I knew nothing about boats. I was fascinated by tractors, trucks, everything driven by an engine. I must say that since I was a child I had a great passion for engines, so much so that I followed this passion of mine even in the direction of my studies: in fact I graduated in agricultural mechanics.”

BaM: When did you start working?
G.R.: “My first experiences were during school vacations at a machine shop. It was a job I liked. Once I graduated, I found a position at Perkins. The manager at that time, Dr. Vivamacchia, came to like and appreciate me. One day they were going to test a 14-meter Piantoni powered by two marinized industrial Perkins engines, and the director took me along. We were at the Circeo. I remember that as soon as I got on board I immediately wanted to see the engine room, and when I stood in front of that pair of engines I was dumbfounded. It was as if I had seen a beautiful girl. All is Vivamacchia asked me if I wanted to go with him and I didn’t let him tell me again. I embarked, served as a motorman, a sailor, and everything else there was to do on board. Then I got the opportunity to take the job of workshop manager at Motomar in Palermo. I was only 19 years old and found myself managing 40 workers. It was an important experience. I stayed in Palermo for two years. Then I returned home, to Borgo Montenero, a hamlet of San Felice al Circeo, and thought only of setting up on my own. At the end of 1973 I set up a boat servicing, maintenance, repair and storage business.”

BaM: So out of the blue! Was it your own choice?
G.R.: “Rather, I would say an opportunity exploited. In those years motor boating was in great development and there were many boats in San Felice. I had a small workshop on the harbor and there was no shortage of work. Little by little, customers made me realize that if I had a storage shed, they would let me have their boats. And so I built in my village a shed of 1,200 square meters. I took a big risk, I know, but I felt the trust of my customers and this pushed me to dare. After a few years I expanded the shed area and set up a few small support companies. By the end of the 1970s the desire, the ambition to build a boat had matured in me.”

BaM: There is a big difference between having knowledge of engines and boats. He had a lot of courage!
G.R.: “The courage of a passion that grew day by day. I found at Posillipo-the shipyard was evidently in my destiny-an incomplete wooden boat model; I bought it and gave it to a shipwright I knew. The model had been created for the construction of a flying bridge. Instead, I had a 40′ open made and thought that if the boat did well, I could then use the model to make the male for a fiberglass mold. So off I went. From that first 40′ I then went on to the 45′, the 50′ and the 53′.”

BaM: Did you have to enlarge, buy new warehouses?
G.R.: “I took over a fruit and vegetable garden company that had a large shed that had been abandoned for a few years. Exactly where our plant stands today.”

BaM: From fruit to boats was quite a conversion. You had rapid success. How do you explain that?
G.R.: “I was probably lucky enough to grow up at the right time. But, as I said, I also devoted myself body and soul, day and night to my work.”

BaM: What milestones do you consider key in your rise?
G.R.: “The milestone was undoubtedly the purchase of Cantieri di Posillipo. A historic, famous shipyard, which gave us luster and made us make the leap in quality.”

BaM: When you talk about destiny, you have to take into account the relocation of the site to Sabaudia.
G.R.: “In the caves of Posillipo, where they were born, they no longer fit. So they moved to Sabaudia, partly because it looked like they were going to open the lake with a small navigable canal that would connect it with the sea. Unfortunately, 50 years have passed and the promises have still not been kept. Even today we are still struggling for the lake to become either a harbor or a dock. The body of water is 5 km long, and at least one part, about 1 km, could be used as a dock. It would become the most beautiful natural harbor, not to say in Europe, but certainly in Italy. You could even make it a small Miami 2. Unfortunately, here in Italy with all the political problems….”

BaM: Rizzardi glares. And a serene man who doesn’t like to make controversy, even if the truths then he doesn’t hide them….
G.R.: “We are forced to load the boats on trucks to take them from the shipyard to the launching port in Terracina; 20 km with charter exceptional transports at hallucinating costs. I repeat, hallucinating!”

BaM: How did the Posillipo acquisition go?
G.R.: “By the late 1980s the shipyard was already in crisis, but it received the coup de grace in 1990 with the sale to a certain Nouri. In two years he sent it down the drain, into bankruptcy. I entered it in 1993 on a business lease. To tell you the truth, I had no intention of getting involved in it, but my lawyer convinced me that I was the only one who could take it and that I had to come forward also for political expediency. So I came forward and ended up winning the bid and finding a company in my hands to save.”

BaM: How many employees did you have at that time?
G.R.: “About a hundred and twenty, but I agreed to keep only a third.”

BaM: And the Rizzardi had how many?
G.R.: “Twenty-five or twenty-six.”

BaM: Small fish eating big fish, a rare case.
G.R.: “Heh, yes. When I looked at the company’s expenses after winning the tender, I was impressed. Just to name one, we were spending seven to eight hundred thousand liras on electricity, they on ten million. Frightening! You can’t say I didn’t have courage.”

Also attending our chat with Gianfranco Rizzardi are his two sons, Corrado and Damiano, university students in La Spezia, destined to join their father in the company. Two bright and polite young men who have so far followed in silence. But in the face of our observation, the eldest, Corrado, can’t bring himself to keep quiet: “If that’s why, he also risked divorce….” Father Gianfranco laughs amused:

G.R.: “Water under the bridge! It’s true, though. There were difficult times: when I built the first shed and even worse when I bought the former fruit and vegetable cooperative: ‘Choose,’ Milvia said to me, ‘either me or your grandiose plans.’ I thought about it for a whole night. Then I faced her: I’m going ahead. If you love me, follow me; don’t leave me alone in this adventure!”

BaM: Is your wife the moderating element in the family?
Damiano, the second son, intervenes, “Let’s just say the brake.”
Gianfranco continues, “I’m not going to tell you what happened when the Posillipo deal took place.”

BaM: Let’s imagine. Where did the kids get the character from?
G.R.: “A good deal of Dad’s blood flows in both of them, even though they are different in character.”

BaM: Now that you have run offshore you will make the poor woman despair! But back to Posillipo…
G.R.: “Once I took a business lease, I was faced with the ashes.”

BaM: How come? Wasn’t selling anymore?
G.R.: “To sell, he sold. But the financial management was disastrous. The money he collected, instead of staying in the company, went out. And by dint of milking, milking, without feeding anything, the milk ran out. And there was bankruptcy. Now things have changed. In March of this year Posillipo became mine for all intents and purposes.”

BaM: In these eight years, have you limited yourself to a rehabilitation policy or have you also done something new in terms of investment?
G.R.: “I made new models, new molds, new investments. Already in 1995 I had launched an 80’boat that was fairly successful. Two years later we repeated with the 70′. From this year Posillipo has its own complete autonomy. I basically left the two brands Rizzardi and Posillipo divided, differentiating production. Posillipo makes flying bridges and Rizzardi makes opens.”

BaM: Now that your children are about to join the company, will you take some rest, some time off for yourself?
“But if you don’t even take vacations”-the two young men insurgently rise up in unison. Papa Rizzardi tries to justify himself. In reality, work is his greatest passion. The engines, the boats, the clients, the future projects, the children growing up and getting closer to his work, to his life. These are satisfactions! And this is also the real secret of his success.

By Riccardo Magrini

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