On the 20th anniversary of his death, Carlo Zaccariotto was commemorated with civic honours in his hometown of Gaiarine in the Treviso province.
A plaque was installed venerating the Italo-Australian entrepreneur’s longstanding commitment to rebuilding his municipality of origin.
Zaccariotto was one of the most successful entrepreneurs of the Italian community in New South Wales, and despite his many years away from Italy, he always managed to maintain a special relationship with his origins and culture.
This was demonstrated by an event organised on September 10 in the main square of Gaiarine. Local authorities and Zaccariotto’s descendants paid homage to him 20 years after his death, installing a commemorative plaque in front of the Koala Club, which the entrepreneur founded.
Mayor Diego Zanchetta and some representatives of the city council were present at the event, as were members of Trevisani nel Mondo, Canton Ticino and Campione d'Italia - namely, President Silvano Zaccariotto, Carlo's nephew.
It was Silvano’s speech that retraced his uncle’s history between Italy and Australia; a man who never shirked challenges, but rather always welcomed them.
“Throughout his life, Charles was able to take risks, recognise luck, and possessed intuition and ingenuity that put him one step ahead of his opponents - especially in the game of poker he so enjoyed.
“One example was in Palestine: it was at a gathering of hundreds of prisoners that his survival instincts kicked in when the crowd was asked who knew how to cook. Carlo raised his arm with such speed that it almost fell off, conspiring to use the name ‘Danieli di Venezia’ as a fake previous employer - and so he was hired as a cook at the English officers' mess hall.”
Carlo Zaccariotto, the penultimate of eight children, was born on April 20, 1917, in via Borgo Scuro in his parents’ home. His father Noè was a bricklayer and well-known drummer in the local band. His mother, Elisabetta 'Lisa' Fantuz, was a pipe-smoking redhead with a shrewd character.
After his years of military service and imprisonment during the Second World War, which he ironically referred to as ‘his university education’, he spent a few years between precarious local jobs and sojourns in Switzerland with his older brother Battista. In 1948 he married his beloved Rina, fulfilling a promise he had made to her many years earlier. Soon, the two became three when their first-born daughter, Daniela, came into the world.
Carlo arrived in Sydney on the ship Sorrento in February 1950, along with dozens of other Gaiarinesi, thanks to the financial and logistical support of his brother-in-law Pietro Casagrande, his cousin Rachele Sonego and her brother Vittorio Pizzol.
Pizzol, an artisan model maker, was waiting for him on the other side of the ocean, taking him in and helping him find his first few jobs.
After only six months he was joined by his nephews, his sister Caterina's children, who became essential collaborators in Carlo’s first construction company, established in New South Wales.
It was in 1953 that Carlo entered into his second successful marriage, a professional one, with an Australian carpenter in his early thirties named George Clissold. The two became an inseparable force in the construction business and, in 1957, Carlo put him in charge of Cazac Construction, the second largest concrete-laying company in NSW.
In 1954, four years after his departure, his wife Rina, a person of great faith, also arrived in Australia. She worked hard to foster a sense of calm and security that bound the family together. Three more children were born - Paola, Carla and Marco.
With the support of the family, Carlo set off on many successful ventures: he imported the first concrete pump to Australia at the turn of the 1960s; he was a distributor of the first intercoms for home security alongside Camillo Baggio; and he manufactured the revolutionary Zacuba, the first fully automatic kiln which facilitated the transition from manual to automated work. He also ventured into the commercial distribution of mineral water.
A man with an all-round vision, Zaccariotto was also president of the Club Marconi football team. He hired the much sought-after coach Rale Rasic, the same man who would take the Australian national team to the final stage of the World Cup in Germany in 1974 for the first time.
In 1977 he brought the well-known face of Roberto Vieri, aka Bob, to Australia, father of the star player Christian, a great former player for Juventus, Inter and Milan. With his help, the club won their first Australian championship.
Carlo was always involved in social initiatives for the Italian community. He collaborated on the creation of the first Scalabrini Village and, of course, was among the founders of the local section of Trevisani nel Mondo, an association that is still very active today.
One event which Carlo was particularly proud of was a parade through the main streets of Sydney in the late 1970s, featuring the fanfare (band) of the Bersaglieri of the Goito brigade from Italy.
His good institutional connections allowed him to organise the event, a moment he remembered with intense fondness. The Australian crowds stunned by the performance while the Italians were filled with pride.
Another institutional initiative of Zaccariotto’s was the twinning of the municipalities of Gaiarine and Botany Bay, east of Sydney, which was proposed back in 1983.
To commemorate the twinning, the municipality of Botany Bay built Botany Park, right next to the cemetery where Rina and Carlo rest.
“Enlightened minds know how to grasp the value of teamwork, and this allows them to achieve great results,” Carlo’s nephew ventured.
“Carlo had great faith in his fellow man, and I’d like to emphasise this quality of his. It was because of this that at the beginning of the 1970s he had wanted to realise his dream of transforming the humble Resteja waters of his memories into an exceptional aquatic environment. He invested a lot of money and relied on his young nephew, surveyor Noè, who with care and determination oversaw the implementation of the project helmed by engineer [Alberto] Caroncini of Udine. He also relied on his brother Mosè for his trustworthy administration.
“With the dynamism of that era, in three years this beautiful and original flagship called Koala Club blossomed from nothing,” concluded Silvano Zaccariotto.
It’s the very same place where Carlo’s commemorative plaque has now been unveiled.
