Engineer Airoldi, a great nautical entrepreneur, has passed away.

The boating world and the city of Genoa lose a piece of their history with the passing of Engineer Bruno Emanuele Airoldi, president of Ranieri Tonissi SpA, who passed away last Sunday at the age of 88.

Thanks to his technical and entrepreneurial skills, Engineer Airoldi has been able over the years to transform a small Company, focused in its early days on the import of agricultural machinery, into one of the most successful companies in the marine industry that now boasts more than sixty employees.

A sunny and smiling man, capable of facing difficulties with an irony that always distinguished him.

After the forced pause of World War II, Italy began reconstruction; in this context, Ranieri Tonissi, thanks to Bruno Airoldi and his father Ettore, began close cooperation with the German MAN.

This synergy is synonymous with important success, firstly because the Company is already capable of moving into German import channels, and secondly because it is so well established in the Italian market that it can perceive its immediate needs.

Under his leadership, the company began supplies of large plants–diesel or steam–for power generation and those of industrial equipment such as port and steel mill cranes.

Thanks to its ever forward-looking vision, it simultaneously initiates the development of the marine sector, with the supply of diesel marine propulsion equipment, from large ships to fishing boats and tugboats, up to the present day, in which the marketing of “small” recreational engines, one4 of the Company’s main business branches, takes on increasing importance.

From January 2014 the business moved to the new facility located inside the Port of Genoa in Area Riparazioni Navali where, thanks to the skills of the children Ilaria and Alessandro Airoldi, it is continuing its “growth path” establishing itself a true flagship of Genoese entrepreneurship.