1925-2015NINETY YEARS OF INSIGHTS AND CREATIONS

ACHIEVED BY SUCCESSFUL SYNERGIES

from Bassano to the world

1925-2015Ninety years of insights and creations

achieved by successful synergies

Texts by Giandomenico Cortese, Vladi Finotto, Andrea Minchio, Giovanni Battista Sandonà

EDITRICE ARTISTICA BASSANO

Coming together is a beginning;keeping together is progress;working together is success.Henry Ford

Yesterday is but today’s memoryand tomorrow is today’s dream. Kahlil Gibran

Nulla dies sine linea(Not a day without a line)Pliny the Elder

from Bassano to the world1925-2015Ninety years of insights and creationsachieved by successful synergies

General coordinationAlberto FaveroManaging Director

Editorial coordinationSilvia BordignonAlessandra LagoAndrea Minchio

TextsGiandomenico CorteseVladi FinottoAndrea MinchioGiovanni Battista Sandonà

TranslationsIntertrad di A. Thaler & C. Snc

PhotographsHistory Archive of Baxi SpAArchive of Editrice Artistica BassanoCity Museum of Bassano del GrappaAndy Pozzobon

First EditionJune 2015Editrice Artistica Bassano

© Copyright byBAXI SpA - Bassano del GrappaThe reproduction of textsand images is prohibited.

We thank all people who haveenthusiastically collaborated in thecreation of this publication throughreports, testimonies and loans.The concretization of this culturalinitiative is also due to their invaluablecontribution.A special thanks goes also to who, indifferent ways, has always been committedto work with the company to achieveimportant goals: CRAL (CompanyEmployees’ Recreational Association),particularly to Vittorio Merlo and to theRSU (Unitary Trade Union Representation)for the many projects carried out togetherwith passion and determination. www.facebook.com/baxi90th

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To describe the experience of a company is never asimple thing: we can also add that the difficulty is

directly proportional, or perhaps better said, exponen-tially proportional to the age of the same. It is our storythat we tell you in these pages, the story of a companythat has reached the age of ninety.In this long period, we have acquired many testimonies:the quotes, products, photographs, memories andobjects are so many that we are spoiled for choice. It isdifficult, though, trying to condense this long itineraryin a single publication and allow the reader to under-stand the essence of this trip, which has seen thousandsof people joining our reality since its foundation.

A selection has been necessary, but we do not want toforget the many protagonists of these first ninety yearsand is also to them, in equal measure, that we owe thegrowth of this company and the sharing of manymoments, also difficult, which did succeed. However,our intent is just that: understand the social and historicalmoments that formed the company’s developmentframing through the rereading of testimonies, but espe-cially the intensity and passion that have alwaysaccompanied the working life of these ninety years.Many are the episodes described, fruit of the experiencesof each one, of what they lived within the company.The transferring of property and the commercial andindustrial strategies that took place might make you

think of some sort of discontinuity between a historicmoment and another. It seems, at times, than with aname change (the company has changed it four times)one finds oneself in a different company. This journey through time must be looked at as that ofa ship. This ship is our company. To sail, there is theneed of an element of continuity, of a fluid element,represented by our people, the many people whoworked or are working here: our sales agents,importers, clients, service centers and all our partners.Generational witnesses who have believed and continueto believe in this reality with a passion and a profes-sionalism that knows no time and who have helpedmake it a protagonist, in many cases a pioneer one.They are the “Ariadne’s thread” that links 1925 to2015. Through the words of those who tell their personalexperience or memories of an episode it will not bedifficult to become co-protagonists and empathize withthe intense life of these first ninety years. To them, to you, thank you. All the best wishes to every one for an enjoyable read-ing and a good trip.

Alberto FaveroManaging Director

A journey through time, amongst many people

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Resilience: perhaps this is the most apt word to sum upthe hallmark of Baxi: the inherent capacity to apply a

creative, tenacious approach to coping with tricky or diffi-cult situations and to turn them into winning opportunities. Throughout its ninety-year existence - as this engagingvolume illustrates - the company from Bassano has oftenbeen called upon to put this talent to good use. The resultsare fortunately clear for all to see. A further essential - andequally significant - characteristic of the companyemerges just as clearly from this book: the strong links thatbind Baxi to its native Bassano area, that “little somethingextra” the various owners have been able to take advan-tage of. It is no coincidence, as has been noted, thatBassano - right from its foundation - has been a crossroadsbetween the German and Venetian lands, between theNorth and the South, the East and the West; a trading cen-tre of the banks of the Brenta River, close to the northernreaches of the Serenissima. This is a land with a naturalvocation for doing business and for exchanges with othercultures, other civilisations, other worlds. It is sufficient to consider the thriving Antonibon factories, inthe ceramic sector, or the Remondini family, who in the 18th

century owned the largest graphics business in the world.So we might say that this is a place where people are bornto do business. I believe it is with this in mind - and not onlybecause it made sense from a logistical viewpoint - that in1925 the Westen family chose this area to found and developtheir successful Smalteria Metallurgica Veneta.

Since then, of course, the journey has not always been asmooth one. The company that for decades was consideredsynonymous with a “secure wage”, a place to “WorkUniversity”, ahead of its time in Italy with regard to impor-tant contractual and social agreements, has also gonethrough extremely trying times, especially during theSeventies, when all appeared to be lost, with dire conse-quences for local employment and linked business. Darkdays indeed for the town, which still remembers the dramaticsituation. It was these very circumstances, however, thathighlighted the value of the relationship linking the compa-ny, the institutions and the representatives of the world ofemployment. Over many long years, their joint efforts havemade it possible to safeguard over 700 jobs and offer newjob prospects, through the reconversion of production, thefocus on research and creativity and in active cooperationwith other industries, together with the emergence of aclose-knit team of young, courageous managers, allowingfor an extraordinary turnaround of the company’s fortunesin the space of just a few years. Not only is Baxi of Bassanoback on its feet: today it is one of the most competitiveplayers in its sector, with a business culture able to come upwith effective, winning strategies and offer new jobprospects also for the generations to come. A business Italycan be proud of, with promising prospects for the future.

Giuliano PolettiMinister of Labour and Social Policy

A company able to evolve and compete worldwide

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In a historic moment like the one that Italy is cur-rently experiencing, heavily laden by bureaucracy

that is very costly to companies and a worrying unem-ployment rate, working, furthermore in a contextwhich, on several occasions has displayed a non-posi-tive approach toward industry, I find it extremelyrewarding to be able to celebrate the important mile-stone reached by this company.A beautiful reality of the Vicenza province which, withgreat charisma and much determination, reached ninetyyears from its historic foundation.A success, that ofBaxi, which draws its foundation from an unquestion-able combination of values, authentic pillars on whichBaxi has based its success,becoming a true industrialexcellence.It is, in fact, worthy of note the “mettle” thatover the years Baxi has shown, knowing often how toreinvent itself, diversifying production and reacting withpride and creativity during tough times. Talents, whichmany other companies in the territory implement dailywith courage and a sense of duty.Also thanks to them,we are starting to breathe again air of confidence in thefuture: we are already feeling the first timid signs of asignificant and gratifying breakthrough.Baxi representsan example of brilliance to follow with enthusiasm.

Giuseppe ZigliottoPresident of Confindustria Vicenza (Association representingmanufacturing and service companies in Italy)

The mettle that makesthe difference

Fluttering high above the town’s main towers in thegenerous breeze of the Valbrenta, the lively red and

golden yellow of Bassano’s flag immediately call tomind the colours of the Lagoon’s capital of yesteryear,as they stand out with vigour against the Grappa moun-tains and the Sette Comuni Plateau in the background.This flag is the symbol of our people: active, enterpris-ing folk ready to rise to a challenge, accustomed totackling even the most dramatic, demanding situationswith a shot of positive energy. These immediately iden-tifiable colours are also found on the shirts our hometeam wear with pride at every important competition.And Bassano, as this book clearly illustrates, is a veryspecial team indeed, on and off the pitch.I’m referring, with this sporting metaphor, to theBassano company Baxi, which the locals - in honour oftradition - still insist on calling by its original name of“Smalterie”: an exemplary business, the largest in ourarea, which has been able to come through the darkestof days, thanks to a deep-rooted sense of belonging, theproven skill of its management and the impressiveexpertise of its workers. The jewel in Bassano’s crown,which has shown us how far-sighted choices and thecourage to experiment can bring home a victory even inthe toughest of matches.

Riccardo PolettoMayor of Bassano del Grappa

Pride in our team

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The Ezzelini’s Castle:Bassano del Grappapresents itself this wayfor those coming fromthe north side.

On the previous page:the historic Ponte Vecchio(Old Bridge) designed byarchitect Andrea Palladio,on the background of thecastle; an icon of greatscenographic effect(ph. Andy Pozzobon).

But what town of such nice river, or riverof what other town better adorns itself,and of the best arts and pleasure consents?What show of joy!

Giuseppe Barbieri, Il Bassano, 1804

Bassano is a land of ancient industriousness. Influencesinterweave the area. Marked by tracing of frequent

migrations from the northern German area, Bassano has asfiligree a lively exchanging flow of people, with theirknowledge, skills, technical expertise and commercialshrewdness. The human and cultural elements, as well asnaturalistic and environmental, geographic and historicalcomponents nourish for over a thousand years the goodlife and the productive breathing of this happy piedmontsection. In the look of thoughts, it appears as a land unin-habited by a multifarious genius.The first gifts of Beauty are the wonderful nature, theenchanting scene of the mountains protecting the hills, ofthe wind that breathes wind, which animates the trees, thegardens and the villages. The theater of harmony inspiresman who, energized by this wonderful place, builds a richliving for the beauty of arts and excellence in producing,trading and creating. Da Ponte canvases immortalize thisinnate vocation at producing.Therefore, here is the tale of the Mercato (Market), wherework and commerce are a festive confusion and theStagioni (Seasons), to celebrate the working of the land, of

the harvest and of the herds. The Noè (Noah), who worksat the Ark, makes of the bassanesi factories a representa-tive context en plen air of the biblical Patriarch, theOfficina di Vulcano (Volcano’s Factory) portrais the interiorscene of a blacksmith mallet along the laborious BrentaRiver. Along the river’s banks, the Pianta di Bassano(Bassano’s Map) by the Da Ponte, places eager and joyfulworking scenes in its disorderly enthusiasm: hardworkingraftmen, mills wheels in full activity, frenzied river portworkers, traders taking care of the market. The BrentaRiver is key and heart of the election to beauty, creativity,arts and the economical activities in Bassano.The Bassano’s culture, gathered at the feet of the moun-tains and by the river, lives and grows thanks to it: theLatin “Medoaco Padre” for the Romans, the “Brenta” inthe subsequent prevailing term of Germanic influence.Bassano has a Romanic and Germanic matrix, even in theeconomical field. The river is “he” and “she” Brenta,father and mother. It is the conveyor belt, the assemblyline, the trading emporium and exhibition space of the bestproducing of Bassano.It allows Ponzio of Cluny in 1124 to build the “Monastero

The Lion, the Eagle, the BrentaBassano in the mirror of history

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Jacopo dal Ponte,La costruzione dell’arca,(The building of theArk), detail, oil oncanvas, 1575. Privatecollection.

della Santa Croce” (Monastery of the Holy Cross) for whosebuilding site, the first bridge is built. From here starts the eco-nomical development of the right bank of the Brenta Riverwith its terraces. It enables the milling economy, the develop-ment of vineyards and the growth of a great wool district.It provides the decisive push for the boosting of the paperindustry, printing engraving and book typography, cradleof aquavitae (spirit) distillation, significant to the point ofhaving the spirit in Venice, an exclusive warehouse andcustomhouse. Not to mention the timber industry whichuses the rafting, lives on the water and of it. The accountof sources, documents, texts and monuments confirms thatBassano is an aesthetic community based on work.The medieval walls of Bassano, enlarged in their radiusover the mid centuries, are indicative of growth andexpansion, demographic, economical and political: intimes of daily struggle for life only a prosperous commu-

nity grows, which eats, produces and trades.The Castle stands on the hill, well crouched, in a dominantposition but not high, just above the River, where theriverbed is narrower, at the bottleneck where the streamends and a broader and more serene water flow starts. Sonof the Brenta River, it watches the death of the valley andthe genesis of the plain, the end of the alpine continent andthe dawn of the Veneto plains.It is motor and guardian of community life: it has a big cel-lar that is conservation hold for agricultural produce; ahigh place of observation and a wall of defense forhumans and animals; a custodian and dispenser of divinelife, matryoshka that houses the parish church with thebaptismal font; it is final resting cemeterial abode.Soaring into the sky but well anchored to the rocky hill, fromhis pentagon corner tower-native nest of the last and greaterEzzelino, glory of the Da Romano, of ancient Germanic ori-gin-start off the trunks and branches of the walls. An awe-some fortification tree that Marin Sanudo the Young, awareby then of their military uselessness, will describe in awe asa fearsome mastiff crouched to guard the territory. Beside the physical and military wall perimeter, the com-munity finds itself in the political and statutory legal terri-tory. Statutes are afoot of tasty economic news and offer amoving framework for the Bassano inhabitants being anddoing at the beginning of the median ages. They photo-graph a border center, hinge on the river between Venetoand Germany, for position and vocation, place of transitand exchanges.The Municipal life draws wealth from the River, from thecountryside blooming nature, from the resale of local pro-duction processing. Center path, Bassano is also the roadof pilgrims and merchants: has a first religious hospice inSan Vito, and then in 1308 a second one for a pious secu-lar initiative, with twelve beds. Passenger transits were ris-

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ing along the Brenta River path, which also generated agrowing economical volume.The city is charming for the countryside labor: betweenthe folds of statutory books articles, one reads about theintention to summon within the walls, individuals withmanufacturing production skills and of high competence.The markets in existence in 1259 are two. One urban,reserved to the piedmont economic operators and the ter-ritories towards Treviso, is at the plátea communis in theheart of town. The second market is situated at the headof the wooden bridge, in capitis pontis Brente on theshore of Angarano: it is referred to the whole right side ofthe Brenta River. On the bridge transit merchants, travel-ers on foot or horseback, herds of sheep, cows and cattle,oxen pulled wagons, pigs, donkeys and their owners,small size birds, animals conducted by people of the com-pany, the bubulci de campanea.

The animals and the products processing - “caci” (sheepmilk cheese) and cheeses, breads, wooden products andwicker weaves product, “stroppe” (twigs of red willowtree), cloths, earthenware and pottery, wines - are traded inthe two locations, although sometimes they are sold bypeddlers. A seven-day fair takes place for San Martino, atthe end of the annual earth cycle and of the harvesting.Different taxes are imposed on goods, including the so-called “pontatico”, tax for the bridge crossing, never freein the middle ages. You can sell goods from other territo-ries, except for wine, local economy spearhead, of whichthe Bassano people are manufacturers and exporters. Theregulations protect with strict disciplinary rules the localvineyards, the grapes, the taverns and the selling of wine:every barrel or bottle is stamped and taxed. It tends toestablish a seal of quality and local typicality, a medievalD.O.C. (Denomination of Controlled Origin) or D.O.P.

Francesco and Leandrodal Ponte, Map ofBassano, 1583-1610.Bassano del GrappaCivic Museum.

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Giovanni BattistaCecchetto, Napoleon onhorseback, great decoratedceramic dish, mid-19th

century. ManifatturaCecchetto, Nove.

Jewish people, whose activity is regulated by legislation,then replaced by the numerous usurers of Tuscan origin,predominant in the 14th century. Their constant presence inthe historical sources and their growing number speaks ofa flourishing economy. Jewish people in the city are fewand most likely non-residents. Present definitely evenbefore 1404, a clearer and more extensive mentioning oftheir presence is found only in the Venetian period docu-mentation. They are essentially lenders. Foreign doctorshave their practice in town, supported by the municipality,which provides funds also for a good school, which pre-pares the future managerial class, then sent to the studiumof Padua. The powerful notaries, in the mid thirteen cen-tury, are structured in a professional association or frater-nity called “fraglia” - they control the power and regulatethe economic life. They are, factually, according to theproductivity report offered by the statutes of 1295 and1259, the municipality of Bassano. Then the 14th centuryarrives, with the black plague of 1348 and the Viscontidominions, which promotes a statutory review in 1389 andattempts to divert the course of the Brenta River through astone dam-bridge soon swept away by the river.In 1404, the Bassano area also finds peace under the wingsof the Lion. The mainland subjects are forced to accept thesupremacy accorded to Venice to the waters-even of riversor lakes-on the mainland. The main fluvial centers, includ-ing Bassano, will hold a crucial role for the “Dominante”(Dominant referred to Venice). Bassano, “of Brenta” before and more than “of Grappa”,already thinks as its new Lords therefore renewing andstrengthening itself. Palladio will talk about it as a territo-ry placed at the roots of the Alps, which separate Italyfrom Germany, on the border between the mainlandVenetian state and the imperial Tyrol. It is not by chancethat some maps represent the two dominions and their bor-

(Denomination of Protected Origin). Another importantmedieval economic entry regards the grain milling and themill wheels on the River, not far from the bridge, of whichnews from 1209 already attest the existence.While the bakers are citizens, the millers are for the mostpart from outside: they are hosted in mills, equipped withvicinity used for accommodations.Some are in semi-servile conditions, others are skilledworkers, and others finally are entrepreneurs and owners,these being citizens. There live in the town many weavers,to which are provided by statute there wool cloth measure-ments. There are some leather tanners, which are some-times from the north part of the German area. Masons areamongst the common workers categories operating in thetown. The figure of a hatchet teacher and partner in homeconstruction is also mentioned, someone similar to a super-intendent foreman. The statutes present also the high-endsocial workers. First of all, the moneylenders, mainly

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der with the animals symbols of their reference, placingBassano on the back of the “Leone di San Marco” (SanMarco’s Lion), where the Imperial Eagle claws reach:imaginative cartography rendering, pictorial account ofseveral layers of frescoes on “Porta Dieda” and historicalreality confirm this. With the plateau’s “Cimbri”, the val-ley inhabitants of the Brenta Canal, the Feltre area and theupper part of Treviso along the banks of the Piave River,Bassano shares the delights but also bears the crosses of alarge zone at the alpine border of the Serenissima.The Brenta path along with the Adige Valley and theirchief towns will be the most devastated by the ImperialArmy in 1509: after the fierce resistance in Canal delBrenta, Bassano and its people will be torn apart.The hardship of those years will shock even the alreadylively economy of Bassano that was linked to the produc-tion of wool, to leather tanning process, to milling, toproducts of the land processing.

The Bassano territorial location made it a market emporium,an intermodal river station, commodities customhouseand a duty station in Valstagna, still part of the Bassanoauthority, which reached the Kopfel of Butistone at theborder with Tyrol. The local economy revolved aroundsome strongholds that were dear to Bassano more than toVenice, whose relationships were not always tranquil: pro-tection of local productions, tax limitation, safeguardingof high quality brand. In any case, the connection betweenBassano and Venice, abundant for political and militaryreasons, are especially intense on the economic front.At the end of the 15th century, the town counts around 3000people just in the urban territory.At the decline of Venice, in 1766 the inhabitants were8600. Applications for admission to citizenship in Bassanoare kept on record: people request to live in Bassano forlocal amenities, good climate, wealth and the expectationof exercising a decorous profession safely and with bene-fits. There is an overabundance of shepherding abounds,which occupies a lot of the countryside. The grain produc-tion is not sufficient and Bassano must resort to imports.Consequently the “Fondaco delle Biave” was born, a pub-lic warehouse where wheat, rye and millet were stored. In1602, the municipality cedes ownership and land cultivationto private individuals, when before the municipality mainlypredominantly owned it. The chief magistrate, during thistime, was the noble Priuli, who rebuilt the municipal Loggiaand built his Venetian villa on the river near the bridge.At mid century of the nearly 14,000 fields, half belong tosmall owners, dedicated to grow corn; nine percentbelongs to Venetian Patricians (Venetian aristocracy). Theremaining in the hands of the local nobility: Angaran,Roberti, Compostella, Vittorelli and other families take oneconomic strength.The local economy supporting structure in the Venetian

The elegant Zodiac clockthat crowns the loggia of“Municipio di Bassano”(Bassano MunicipalityBuilding); the mechanismwas built in 1747 by the celebrated engineerBartolomeo Ferracina.

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Enamelled crockery, thecharacteristic red color,produced by SmalteriaMetallurgica Veneta in the1950s: a sort of reminderof the noble ceramictraditions of the territory.

period is wool: to say Bassano for three centuries equal tosay wool. Plenty of water, many pastures: the wool busi-ness explodes. Many wool and clothes manufacturerssince 1432 ask to invest in Bassano; wool fulling, dyeingplants, drying rooms multiply and, in the city, the numberof weavers, trimmers and combers dedicated to the woolprocessing grows. The municipality becomes active toprevent fraud and adulteration, defend the stamp of quali-ty and maintain taxation at low levels, as had already hap-pened for the wine. The finishing blow will come from aspecial duty, placed by the Venetians in 1672 on mercan-tile ships handling the wool business: suffocated by taxesand the economical crisis, the wool business, as that of thewine (glory of Bassano) migrates elsewhere. In 1743, as asymbolic passing of the baton, the wool factory Stahl andConigh opens in Schio.Another sector is leather one. If in the 13th and 14th centuriesthe leather workers come from Germany, in the first part ofthe 1400’s, they arrive from Gallio. Bassano was the opti-mal site, due to the abundance of water, pastures, animalsand river stones for the production of lime. In the eighteenthcentury, the “pelli camozine” (suede) come into fashion. In1733 Bortolo Gionach (Jonoch) founds a specialized facto-ry in the Bassano area. His descendants will have muchinput to the “Smalterie Venete” (enamelling factory).Sericulture is flourishing for over a century when, in 1578,Bassano is allowed to be alongside of the cultivation withthe textile industry: Bassano women will be famous in theentire “Serenissima” (Venice) as excellent in the “farseda” (silk making). Everything is booming until, in 1673,Venice exacerbates duties and taxes on silk stoves. Thesilk making families from Bassano, fiercely opposed, feelthe blow, followed by the Brocchi, Roberti and Vittorellifamilies while others are lost.Mills are a true local proto-industry already for hundreds of

years. In the early fifteenth century from Primolano to thesouth of the Bassano’s bridge, it was all about river mills:milling of grains, cloths fulling, carpentry and woodwork,iron and weapons work, olive presses. A productive land-scape that will remains for several centuries. Equally tied tothe river is the timber market, controlled by the families ofCanal del Brenta (Brenta’s canal) as Perli, Bosa, Zanchetta,Campesan. The firewood comes from the Colli Alti (highhills), the wood for factories comes from the Trentino woodsand from the Altipiano (plateau) by utilizing a floatingmethod called “menade”. A wood barrier blocking the waterwas built that, when opened, the water would being releasedwith force and carry the wood downstream.Paper mills, printing industry, engraving and the produc-tion of spirit will characterize the Bassano economy fromthe 1700’s becoming its new glory: the Remondini, alongwith other printmakers and smaller publishers releasedfrom their famous typographic workshops on Piazza deiSignori (Lord’s Square), make the name of Bassano gloriousacross all of Europe. Their productions are fed by manypaper mills, firstly the one on the Brenta River. PopularRemondini’s prints are spread by the Tesino area’s vendors

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to the heart of the old continent, the book editions enter inthe best European libraries, the engravings travel tobecome part of noble and royal collections and peoplecome to Bassano to publish an entire Napoleonic battle.Napoleon had lived in the town.The new century sees a fast economic recovery after theending of the Venetian Republic and of the war. The nine-teenth century is the century of Bassano becoming Italianin 1866, but also the time when homeland cultural requestsof Jacopo Bassano and Canova continue to look to thenorth German and central European Hungarian territory.The first main Storia di Bassano (Bassano’s history) presentsin 1884, the signature of Otto Brentari, originally fromValsugana that was already part of the Tyrol, fully bilin-gual, principal of Liceo Brocchi (Brocchi Highschool).The same tension is present in the economy and industry,continuing even during the 20th century. That is howHeidrich Helm builds the pen factory, bearing the samename, along the Brenta River, later renamed with the nameof the mountain sacred to the homeland, where just recent-ly the General Giardino and his army’s standoff had takenplace-celebrated in the city by the monumental statuarycomplex situated in Viale delle Fosse. It is because of thisthat August Westen (1878-1960) arrives in Bassano,founder of Smalteria Metallurgica in Bassano in 1925.Browsing through places and times of other Westen Groupproduction facilities, as they are remembered by the publi-cation for the business 40th anniversary in the city, a picturethat is completely central and eastern European is por-trayed. Bassano is, by no coincidence, present as theextreme southeastern point next to four Austrian produc-tion sites, two Russians, one Romanian and one Hungarian.The Milazzo’s factory, early example of delocalization,was removed. Beyond economic factors, contributing fac-tors were the favorable environmental context offered by

the Brenta River city, its strategic location along the rail-way, daughter of the River and its Valley, which bound theVenice and German areas, land near the Friuli and EasternEurope. Also for these reason, the “Commendatore”(Italian title) Westen placed its factories in Bassano.Therefore, the “Smalterie” (Enamelling factories) are ofgreat importance in the story of excellence of a border indialogue, full of economic promises made possible by aland “daughter” of the River and by its people.In the 21st century in Bassano, Baxi continues this traditionof productivity linked with the local territory and open tothe global challenge.

Ca’ Rezzonico, theprestigious Patricianabode, testifies theconstant presence ofVenice in the city;a continuous stimulusto industriousness and to an undertakingspirit.

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The “Smalterie” yardin an extraordinaryphotographic documentof August 30th 1924. Thecompany was located inan area that, during theGreat War, was occupiedby the Italian Army’sMilitary Engineer Group(as a support to themilitary actions on themassif of Mount Grappa).

Previous page:The first company logoand an historical companygadget reproducing,scaled-down, a redenamelled bath tub.

Announced a few months earlier by the Papal Bull“Infinita Dei Misericordia”, the year 1925 was

proclaimed a Holy Year by Pope Pius XI. Amongstthe big themes proposed by the second Jubilee of theTwentieth century, to a human race still deeplyscarred from the war devastations, were those ofpeace, unity amongst Christians and the function ofsecular people in the catholic universe. In the back-ground, still being drafted, the agreements that wouldlead, in a short time, to the Lateran Treaty. An opportunity to invite a world in great turmoil, notonly political and ideological but also social and eco-nomic, to reflect on the epochal transformations thatwere affecting the most developed countries.Not by chance, a few weeks later, the Scottish engi-neer John Logie Baird - perhaps not fully realizingthe enormous implications - presented in London aninvention destined, in time, to revolutionize massmedia: the television.Also in our Peninsula, however, signs of a certainentrepreneurial dynamism began to consolidate withgrowing intensity, clearly focused toward the develop-

ment of new technologies and intentioned to assertitself, beyond the domestic market, toward internationalmarkets. A progressive industrialization that broughtFiat, for example, to complete the productive plant inTurin just two years prior, in 1923, the year whenGiovanni Agnelli was elected Senator of the Kingdom.Also in the 1920s was created in the Veneto region,the first industrial zone of Porto Marghera, validatedby the settlement of numerous businesses and bythe consequent employment of thousands of work-ers: a “personal” success, one might almost say, ofGiuseppe Volpi of Misurata, president of Sade,Società Adriatica di Elettricità (Adriatic ElectricityCompany) founded in Venice in 1905: an entrepre-neurial reality that represented the essential technicalbase for the region transformation from a predomi-nantly agricultural district to an industrial quadrantwith the declared objective of “the building andoperation of facilities for the generating, transmissionand distribution of electrical energy in Italy andabroad”. The enormous project, took advantage ofthe favourable geographical position, by the laguna

Work Universityand Business SchoolWith “Smalterie” the industrialdevelopment of an entire district begins

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Bassano’s urban expan-sion eastward, at thebeginning of the twentiethcentury, is centered on theaxis of Viale Venezia.In this 1919 map, the bigarterial road is clearlyvisible on the left side ofthe exhibit; the railwaystation area is highlightedin green, while the redrectangle on the upperright (drawn at a latertime) indicates the sectorof “Smalterie”.

(lagoon), to give life to an industrial area, poweredby a workforce originating both from the insular con-text and the Venetian hinterland, constantly plaguedby the lack of employment.This central sector, whose development started in1917 during the crucial phase of the Great War, preludeto a basic strategic industry with chemistry in theforeground, was counterbalanced in the Vicenza ter-ritory, by the wool-textile sector. A division that,unlike the recent lagoon experience, fruit of a wholenew design and resulting from the converging ofinterests related to capital not exclusively fromVeneto, drew from a variegated wealth of productiveknowledge created in almost two hundred years of

proto-industrial activity and widespread manufactur-ing. Two, in particular, the reference companies, bothamongst the sector’s main industries in our country:Lanificio Rossi (Rossi wool mill), founded in Schio in1817, that in the first decade of the twentieth centurywas the main Italian wool business, with numerousplants in the Vicenza territory; Lanificio LuigiMarzotto & Sons, built in 1836 in Valdagno which, inthe 1920s, underwent a radical renovation of the pro-duction facilities and a rationalization of the manu-facturing processes by Gaetano Marzotto, accordingto the Fordism concepts. Such renovation allowed thecompany to reach in 1930 a workforce of about 3500employees, doubling in just a few years the textileproduction and quadrupling that of yarns.

Not far from Valdagno and Schio, always in theVicenza’s province, Bassano Veneto (the attribute“del Grappa” was assigned by the FascistGovernment in 1928 on the tenth anniversary of theend of the Great War) could benefit-in the propheticJubilee’s year-from an extraordinary developmentopportunity as well. Before discussing it at length,however, it should be recalled that, already from the

Viale Venezia, eastward,in 1909.The detail of Parco GenioMilitare (MilitaryEngineering Park), south-east of the train station,in a 1920 map of Bassano.

In the aerial photograph,of that period VialeVenezia presents itselfin all its grandeur. Theplant in Via Trozzetti, notvisible, lies beyond theleft edge of the image.

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beginning of the century, some entrepreneurs (localand foreigner) had attempted to establish businessin the Dal Ponte city, but were forced to give up asthe landowners were unwilling to give up farmingareas in favour of production facilities. At the end ofthe war, though, the matter seemed very different. Alarge area, south of the new road axis of VialeVenezia and east of the train station, hosted duringthe war (starting from 1916) an extensive warehousecomplex by the Military Engineers: a complex oflogistic structures intended for the supplying of thetroops deployed on the Seven Municipalities Plateauand on the Grappa’s massif. The land, cultivatedbefore, had been covered and stabilized by a thicklayer of pounded gravel to allow the building of someinternal roads and several warehouses. To restore thestatus quo, once the military forces were demobi-lized, represented therefore an onerous and uneco-nomic endeavor: to return the land to agriculturewould have been too costly. Moreover, companiesoperating in the Bassano area were few and of smallor medium-size scale, not to mention that the war hadexacerbated the unprosperous economical conditionof the city and of its hinterland, creating a climate of

social distress and poverty.Concerning parameters, therefore, that in 1923 ledthe Municipal Administration presided by MayorGuglielmo Gobbi to contact an important Germanfinancial institution (with the participation of Italianassets), interested in establishing right in the Venetoregion a large enamelling plant; moreover, parame-ters compatible with the industrial strategies of theforeign entrepreneurial group, even in the traditionalvocation of ceramic manufacturing.Already in the 18th century, in fact, in the area ofNove -beyond terracotta pots- copper dishes wereproduced. In more recent times, the technique ofenamelled iron was introduced in the metal produc-tion. The district could therefore offer to its investorconcrete favourable conditions, attributed both to awell-established dishware production and to the recog-nized artisan local skills in utilizing enamel. Withouttaking into consideration, finally, a certain ease in thesupplying of the raw material.Fortunately, after extensive negotiations, the City andthe German entrepreneurial pool, came to an agree-ment of mutual convenience, approved unanimously inthe Municipal Council of January 28th 1924. Bassano

Manual workers andtechnicians proudlyposing in front of thecamera during the buildingof the first warehouses.

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was able, this way, to provide a concrete answer to theunemployment problem, particularly worrisomedespite the resumption of emigration. The reducedpresence of small and medium-scale industries, asmentioned before, could not allow for the absorptionof work demand, even if amongst the active businessof the time in the different sectors (wine producing,gold working, furniture, tanning, and mechanical)one could find illustrious names. Suffice to mentionhere, Distilleria Nardini (Nardini Distillery) foundedin 1779, goldsmith industry Balestra (1882),Mobilificio Bussandri (furniture manufacturing)1911, Calzaturificio Gasparotto (shoe factory) 1889or Conceria Finco (Finco Tannery) 1921…There was also a prestigious representation in theautomotive area with Carrozzeria Fontana, activefrom 1871 to 1928: a domestic front rank representa-tion, merged later with Carrozzeria Pietroboni,another significant reality which specialized in the

production first of motor coach and then of buses(whose headquarters were by the railway station, justwest of the tracks). The agreement brought therefore a breath of fresh air,bringing back hope in the future to the territory, asthe Bassano’s informative periodic “Prealpe” foundedin 1906 mentioned, although in an argumentativetone: “The Bassano’s rulers have been in these pastone hundred years always against the flourishing ofindustries in Bassano, reason that cannot be compre-hended unless we think of a narrow-minded selfish-ness. Only recently it seemed that this fatal traditionhad been broken with the concessions which haveallowed the starting of important Metallurgicalplants” (“Prealpe” February 22nd 1925). Once roughly analyzed the historic and geographicalcontest, with a quick look also at the social and eco-nomic situation, it is now essential to understand whowere the industrialists that gave life to this company:called Smalteria Metallurgica Veneta, the companywas founded in 1924 with an initial capital of threemillion gold lira, by the German August and AdolfWesten (who owned the majority of shares), by theAustrian Joseph Pfeiffer, by the Italians DanteCernitz, Orazio Opiglia, Riccardo Pontil and by otherminor partners. The most influential and authoritativein the company shareholding were the Westenbrothers, August (Lüttringhausen, 1878 - Meran,1960) and Adolf (Lüttringhausen, 1877 - Lienz, 1952).They were the ones to approve the choice for the plantlocation, preferring Bassano to Cittadella andCastelfranco Veneto (other possible locations previ-ously taken into consideration) and to bring to thetown at the feet of Mount Grappa serial productionmethods, modern technologies and highly qualified

It is easy to say “Enamel”…In the common language with the term “enam-el” it is figuratively intended a high level of per-formance; the word, therefore, in a widespreadmeaning is synonymous with vibrancy and bril-liance. Not by chance it is said that it is impor-tant “not to lose the old enamel”, meaning tomaintain a recognized and appreciated efficien-cy. But what is really the enamel?Simplifying as much as possible, we could saythat it is a special glassy and waterproofingcoating obtained by a mixture of basic compo-nents - feldspars (crystallized minerals ofmagma rocks), quartz, carbonate and sodiumchloride -, to which flux, oxidizing, opacifyingand coloring substances are added. Properlyprepared, according to the different materials tobe “enamelled/coated”, this mixture is appliedon the objects and then melted at high tempera-

tures according to the various methodologies.A very ancient technique, enamel was alreadyused by the Egyptians to finish off vases andstone ornaments. Particularly applied to gold-smithing, it produced later, stunning artwork. Inrelatively recent times -between the 19th and 20th

century-an admirable example of jewelry andenamel are the eggs produced by Peter CarlFabergé for the Russian Tzars.

A wonderful enamelledEaster egg created byFabergé for the RussianTzar. The famous jewelercreated 52 of them between1885 and 1917.

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technicians. And it was their decision as well to givethe assignment to move to Bassano already in 1922 totake vision of the territorial contest and, starting fromJune 1924, to personally supervise the plant building,to the Hungarian engineer Nikolaus Leszl (Csanad,1885 - Bassano, 1952), a valuable professionalbelonging to the minority of German language. It wasa happy choice, destined to generate excellent results.Not by chance, industry veterans, the Westen werealso good men’s connoisseurs. Their fortune hadbegun more than half a century earlier, in 1858, when- presumably by their grandfather Peter - a first plantdedicated to the production of enamelled tablewarewas founded in Neschwitz in Saxony. In 1873, whenSaxony became part of the German Empire, theWesten (culturally closer to the Hapsburg’s world)preferred to transfer the plant to Knittelfeld in Styria.In the meantime, however the family had given rise toother plants in several countries of central and EasternEurope, thus creating a well branched, solid group.The sector, in strong expansion, required substantialchemical and metallurgic skills, especially in relationto the introduction of important technological innova-tions in the productive processes: pots, vases, tubs andcontainers in enamelled metal were quickly replacing,thanks to lower prices and greater efficiency, similarproducts in ceramic rather than in stone or other mate-rials. Two were the fundamental factors in the choicefor suitable locations, one practical and specializedand the other so to speak “political”: the availabilityof low cost energy, essential for the use of continuouscycle ovens and printing presses, and the propensityto place the settlements in not very developed areas,and near small towns. Geo-social contests where thecompany could also exercise a certain influence, start-

ing from strength positions toward manual labor andlocal institutions. For Bassano and its territory, how-ever, the presence of a company like SmalteriaMetallurgica Veneta represented, as we have alreadyseen, an opportunity not to be missed. The big factory’s inauguration, with its six hundredemployees and its 16.000 square meters of coveredarea, was hailed in May 1925 as a real event for thecity. An event that the press documented with dueemphasis: “This past Monday, work in the Smalteria

“Comm. AugustoWesten”, founder of“Smalterie”, in acommemorative medalcoined on the occasionof his 80th birthday.(December 25th 1958)

The new Bassano’sindustrial complex ina perspectival drawing(1925).

Metallurgica Veneta has officially begun with theblessing of the building and of the machines impartedby the spiritual economist don Gio. Maria Contewho, once the ceremony was finished, in front of theplants’ directors and of the employees, used beautifulwords marrying religion which elevates to workwhich ennobles” (“Prealpe”, May 24th 1925).

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The first managers’ role was also unanimously recog-nized as an added value, the quid which made the dif-ference and that gave to “Smalterie” (this was thecommon diction that to a great degree has been main-tained up to the present days) a connotation of busi-ness school, a kind of work university. Leszl’s work was joined from the beginning by CEOUgo Sostero (San Daniele of Friuli, 1883 - Bassanodel Grappa, 1953): a profitable professional andhuman partnership, that decreed the company successin the two decades to follow, immediately characterizedby an open and proactive mentality and by a very par-ticular style. Significant characteristics that con-tributed (and not in small measure) to determine acultural impact on the territory as well. Just thinkthat, a month later, on July 1925, a representation ofthe city authorities, along with some merchants and

artisans, proudly led an Argentinian delegation,which was visiting Bassano, to see the factory.Once again the publication “Prealpe” was coveringthe news: “In the big plant, recently built with all themodern techniques requirements, the CEO UgoSostero and engineer Sessel (Leszl, A.N.) accompanythe visitors showing them the speed with which fromthe raw metal sheet, enamelled utensils are obtainedready to sustain the kitchen’s fire” (August 2nd 1925).A climate that, even if in a pompous manner, isdescribed in the publication published by the samecompany on the 25th anniversary of the plant’s found-ing: “The news that one of the largest enamelledmetal industries was raised in Bassano and gaveemployment to a host of workers, gives a glimpse ofnew and brilliant possibilities for Bassano’s trading. By the restful countryside, in front of the mountains’circle forming an enchanting view, the scaffoldingsopened the hearts to a hope of a better tomorrow”(Bassano, 1950).Words chosen to commemorate the company’s firstquarter of a century, certainly, but of propheticnature. In fact, although initially the factory wasdesigned for the production of tableware, in theimmediate following years the production becamediversified and, other new products were added to theenamelled metal utensils (containers, milk cans,plates, etc.). Regarding the raw material used, fromthe catalogues it is deduced that in 1928, “Smalterie”began to produce tin articles, chromed or tinplated; in1931 aluminum appeared, while, two years later,stainless steel did (whose formidable chemical com-position had been detected only in 1913) followed bygalvanized steel.Already in 1929 the company, demonstrating an

Westen pots and dishesof the collections DueLeoni (Two Lions) in blueenamel, Sansone (Samson)in red and Queen in green,from the 1925 corporatecatalogue.

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intrinsic propensity to always reinvent itself produc-ing new articles, began the production of bath tubs inporcelain stainless steel (from a single mold).The following year was the realization, first industrialreality in Italy to accomplish it, of steel radiators. Bold innovations, due both to the design departmenttechnicians’ ability, prompted particularly by

Nikolaus Leszl’s creativity, and to the staff workcapacity, more prepared and professional with eachand every day. “Structural” features that allowed “Smalterie” - injust five years from its foundation - to bring the coveredworking area to 23,000 square meters but, above all,to express clearly what had always been a businesssuccess factor: the ability to diversify. To know how to interpret the times, anticipating

A double page of the1929 catalogue with thepanoramic view of theSerie Favorita (FavoriteSeries) bath tubs stampedin one single mold andporcelain with enamel“of maximum resistanceand shine”.

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The large rotary hearthfurnace, assigned for there-cooking of the stampedpieces (1928).

changes and tapping into internal resources to trans-form oneself and maintain an undisputed competi-tiveness in the domestic and international markets,will be from that moment a peculiar characteristic of

the company, a form of resilience - so to say - thatwill allow the overcoming even of the most criticaleconomic times. In simple words, to know how toturn problems into opportunities.

Below, from left to rightThe packing of chamberpots (1930).Amongst the variousactivities between the1920s and 1930s was themanufacturing of advertis-ing enamelled plaques.

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In respect to Leszl, it is undeniable that his dynamicconcept of entrepreneurial activities - full of enthusiasmand imagination - had much importance. The manager,in fact, sustained the necessity of not sleeping onthe laurels and to never stop, but rather to alwaysmove forward, constantly looking for stimuli andideas. This was a way of thinking that stayed withhim even during his times of relaxation and rest andthat brought him, on more than one occasion, toassign to external technicians the assignment of elab-orating solutions and propositions related to newproducts, not necessarily connected to the productionin progress or the specific sector in which the compa-ny operated. During the 1930s, evident consequenceof this logic, “Smalterie” produced cabinets andrefrigerator’s bins, water heaters, appliances for the

pharmaceutical industry and for distilleries, tools forthe dairy sector, for cheese factories and oil mills, butalso sinks and shower bases.True pride of the company, absolutely in step with thetimes and in direct competition with two aggressive“neighbours” - the Officina (workshop) FumistieraAntonio Zanussi of Pordenone (founded in 1916) andOfficina Zoppas Ferdinando & Sons of Conegliano(built in 1925) - were the so called “economickitchens”. In the years when the country was strug-gling to revive the economy after the GreatDepression of 1929, (only in 1935 the GDP returnedto the levels prior to the crisis), launching in 1933exceptional measures such as the creation of Iri(Institute for the industrial reconstruction) but alsoopting for a rigid protectionism that led to theMussolini autarchy, “Smalterie” successfullylaunched their kitchens into the market, elegantlymarked with the logo Aequator. A product that, in

Above, from left: tinnedsteel articles (1928) andradiators Westen Aequator(1930).

Above, on the left: thetrademark of the DueLeoni (Two Lions) isclearly inspired by theBassano emblem, whereare depicted two rampantlions and a tower.

Resilience, much more than resistanceThe term “resilience” derives from physic and indicates a material’sproperties, subject to loads or impacts, of absorbing energy elasti-cally without breakage. In the case of a metal, for example, the abil-ity to absorb an impact - even through a certain adaptation - avoid-ing cracking. We could say that resilience represents the contrary offragility. In psychology, by extension, resilience corresponds to aperson’s ability to confront negative situations, resetting and reor-ganizing them, so as to transform them into opportunities.Finally, in biology, resilience is a material’s ability to repair itselfafter a damage, returning to its initial state.The concept, to put it in the words of philosopher FriedrichNietzsche, can be summed up in the phrase “what does not kill us,makes us stronger!”.

those years, was experiencing a moderate diffusion inlarge sections of the population, thanks to the evidentfunctionality and the relatively affordable prices dueto the economies of scale serial production. In 1936,a year before Senator Agnelli - repeatedly urgedabout it by the Duce - inserted the Fiat 500 (alsoknown as “Topolino” - “Little Mouse” and designedby engineer Dante Giacosa), “Smalterie” publishedthe third edition of “A look in the kitchen”. The book,consisting of one hundred and twenty pages and pub-lished by the company’s Propaganda Office, consti-tutes a refined example of how the company gaveimportance to the marketing aspects, alternating thepresentation of the Aequator kitchens and the table-ware Saeculum with a series of recipes and recom-mendations addressed to the young brides. In thepreface, Cav. Amedeo Pettini, chef by none otherthan “of S.M. Re d’Italia” recommended to thehousewives to choose the kitchens produced inBassano, excellent to obtain savory dishes. The widevariety of proposals, made possible by optimizing an

Next from the left: anAequator series economicalgas stove from 1940:technologically advanced,it had four burners, anoven and an enclosedplate warmer.The economic wood andcoal kitchen model 900,with food warmer, was agood alternative to the gastype. In the 1938 catalogueit was advertised with theslogan: “Burning it cooks,cooking it saves”.

On the previous page:the large continuousfurnace for dryingenamelled articles.

The bold cover of thelate 1930s catalogue.The “Smalterie” kitchenslend themselves perfectly“to the modern home”.

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An image that was a trueexample in tradition andin the industrial communi-cation: it is in the cataloguecover “Aequator: Kitchensand gas stoves” (1938).

A technician analyzes theperformance of a stove.

Aequator, “a beautiful Italian kitchen in every Italian home”“Ladies today consider, in its whole, the kitchen as the livingroom and takes care of its properties and its elegance. A beautifulAequator gas kitchen is not only a completion to the homeenvironment, but also a basic decorative element. A kitchen iselegant if it is equipped with the excellent thrifty Aequator. Withits brilliant enamels, the Aequator kitchen is the central point thatattracts and is admired”: words not much different from what wewould use today to advertise a good product. Yet, they apperar ina brochure for gas kitchens by Smalteria Metallurgica Venetapublished in the 15th year of the fascist era (started on October 29th

1922, the day after the March on Rome). In 1937 the Bassano’s,in fact, offered, in addition to the traditional economic wood andcoal kitchens, also gas kitchens - definitely more refined - by theLittorina series.

It is interesting, not just for the technology fans, to list some of theirmain characteristics. Drawing information form a catalogue of thesame year, it is deduced that “all kitchens and burners have thebrand new, original Aequators economical burners, removable,equipped with air regulator, with mushroom and cover in stainlessbrass. These are high performance burners and not inferior than thebest existing international burners; they allow for the for the gasflow adjustment according to the local pressure, avoiding back-fire”. We also discover that the burners were “ingeniously” createdso as to be very economical and that the design, simple and linear,allows for the disassembly and the easy cleaning. In fact, it seemsthat the Aequator gas kitchens correspond to “all the requirementsrequested by the modern house-wife, for their perfect constructionand the unequaled aesthetic […] They are made of white porcel-lained steel and they are equipped with cromed hinges, faucets andgaskets.The plate, shelves and covers are removable and the specialdrip tray is removable also while cooking”.Ovens have high characteristics as well, “equipped with rotatoryburners. With the simple use of a handle, it is possible to producea high temperature in the upper part, for spit roast, or uniform heatin the lower part for the cooking of pastries. The walls areenamelled and removable for easy and accurate cleaning. The smalldoor, double-walled, is self closing. The faucet is equipped withsafety stop. On request, all ovens can be provided with thermome-ters and with automatic temperature regulator”. It is really appro-priate to say, as the cover headline underlines, that: “The savingyou give is worth your cost”.

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integrated system capable of covering the entire pro-duction cycle (from metal bars from the foundries tothe finished product), corresponded throughout thedecade prior to World War II to the construction ofnew departments and the continuous increase of theworkforce. To the extent that, in 1940 there were1,300 employees, i.e. about one third of theBassano’s working population and the covered areahad reached 3,000 square meters. Not only that: inthe margin of “Smalterie” was forming a moderateindirectly generated business, constituted largely byworkshop that produced their own dishes and turnedto the company in Via Trozzetti (this is the name ofthe street artery along which the company grew) tohave them enamelled. An extraordinary expansion

that in 1941 led Westen to participate in the constructionof an hydroelectric power station in Campolongosul Brenta, in collaboration with Sade, to meet thecompany’s energy needs; a development - should benoted - much higher than the national growth indexes,that between 1929 and 1939 never recorded morethan one percentage point per year. The climate, how-ever, changed dramatically - and for the worse - dur-ing the 18th year of the Fascist era. On June 10th 1940,concerned about Germany’s expansion push, nowruler of half of Europe (Poland, Denmark, Norway,Belgium, Netherlands, and Luxemburg) and about tooccupy Paris, Mussolini declared war on France andEngland. A risky move, perhaps due to the fear offinding himself in a marginal position in relation tothe German ally in a future European and worldorder. An ill-considered adventure that did cost Italynearly half a million of deaths. A huge price in humanlives, to which was added a true economic catastro-phe: between 1940 and 1945, GDP dropped an aver-age of 10% annually, with a more marked reductionafter September 8th 1943, when the war was fought onItalian soil. When things settled down, after the enor-mous tragedy of the greatest war the world hadknown, the GDP of the Bel Paese (Beautiful Country)had dropped back to the levels of 1906! According tothe Duce, the conflict should have been “a phase ofthe logical; the fight of the poor and numerous peo-ple against the fierce starvers that hold the wealthmonopoly and all the gold on the earth”. Instead…Instead already in February ration books had enteredinto force, with the first rationing of sugar and coffee.Each Italian family member had more than one: forpasta, bread, tobacco, butter, milk (powdered formu-la milk for infants)… The situation in the factories

The versatile productionof “Smalterie” is evidentin an advertising page ofthe 1930s, which marketskitchens, radiators andbath tubs.

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August 8th, 1937: grouppicture of the department“Lattoneria e cucinegrigie” (Tinsmithery andgrey kitchens) workers.

“Secure pay and indoor job!”As testified by Pietro Piotto, at “Smalterie”from 1938 to 1975, already at the end of the1930s to become part of this company was anambitious goal and a security.The company,

in fact, was synonym with “Secure pay andindoor job!”. Even in the following years,“Smalterie” represented for the territory joband retribution guarantee. This is what EsetMeheti, originally from Kossovo, who entered

the company in 1994: the hiring gave himtranquility, stability, regular pay. Invaluablequalities, even more valuables because theywere a “sign of dignity”.

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was obviously dramatic as well.In the Bassano’s territory, as it happened for othercompanies, “Smalterie” sought to cope with theemergencies by converting part of the production formilitary purposes: baking cases, mess tins, large gasand coal kitchens, but also helmets and mine con-tainers. In an insert of those times, the supply ofAequator steel radiators for the submarine Sakarya isadvertised and other units for the Turkish Navy. Inthe nearby Carrozzeria Pietroboni (Car-shopPietroboni), which had then one hundred employees,setting up military army vehicles had almost com-pletely replaced the traditional production of touristbuses. With Teutonic punctuality, on September 9th

1943, while they were working on about forty chas-sis, a department of the Kriegsmarine, under the com-mand of an officer, took possession of the factory,forcing the owner, later expelled, to lay off theemployees (with the guarantee of liquidation); thestaff was then immediately re-hired by the Germansand forced to produce trucks for the Wehrmacht. Fortunately things went better for “Smalterie”.Leading the company at the time was a grandson ofAugust Westen, Max Adolf (Graz, 1913 - BuenosAires 1955), while the workers (about 90% of theirtotal) were members of “Dopolavoro SmalteriaMetallurgica Veneta” created on indication of the fascistauthorities in 1928 and designed as a formidablecontrol instrument over the working life in all its pos-sible manifestations. It must be noted that the compa-ny, although it assumed a position of collaboration atthe beginning (position rather common in the Italianindustry and representing almost the norm), then cameinto contact with the Resistance and played an impor-tant role in favouring the German retreat from the city.

Two curiosities, both little known, regard the“Smalterie” during the years of the conflict.The first one refers to the recruitment of its employeesand their army destinations. Despite them beingfrom the Bassano area, contrary to what might be

The company shippingwarehouse, connectedto the railway network,in the years prior toWorld War II.

Nikolaus Leszl in frontof his office door.

A very dangerous strikeAfter the crucial September 8th 1943, a group of workers andemployees bravely gave life to a clandestine committee inside thecompany, with the double intent of safeguarding the“Smalterie”industrial assets but also to sabotage its military production. Fromdifferent ideologic backgrounds, from the moderate catholic areato that of militant communist, on Christmas Eve, this “resistants”organized a protest strike against the German interferences in thecity’s life and in the company itself: an initiative that could havehad tragic consequences, as deportation or worse, without theprovidential intervention of Nikolaus Leszl. The manager, in fact,took full responsibility, declaring to the nazi-fascist authoritiesthat it was a wage claim and not of political character. Fortunately,they believed him…

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Next, from left: extremelysturdy, but at the same time“light and unbreakable”the radiators Aequatorsappeared also in veryparticular publications.As in this case, where theTurkish submarine Sakariawas mentioned.The effect of Americanbombing on Ponte dellaVittoria (Victory’s Bridge)in 1945. Just to the north,what remained of PonteVecchio (Old Bridge),definitely blown up by theGermans after the partisanattack of February 17th,which destroyed it justpartially. At conflict’s end285 homes were destroyedor severely damaged.

believed, they were not assigned to the alpine troops,but to the Regia Marina (Royal Navy). A practice dueto their good technical preparation, this prerogativemade them extremely suitable to undertake positionsof responsibility on ships and even submarines. Thesecond one concerns the construction of a bomb shel-ter under one of the corporate buildings. Given thatthe train station (practically adjacent to the industrialcomplex) and the company itself were sensitive tar-

gets, the management decided with great sagacity, torealize this kind of “bunker” for the protection of thestaff. However, the American Flying Fortressesfocused their bombing on the Ponte della Vittoria(Victory’s Bridge), which was shot down, involvingthe whole area, fortunately making the use of therefuge unnecessary. After violent confrontations with the retreating Germanformations (formed mostly by paratroopers) betweenSandrigo, Schiavon and Marostica, on April 25th 1945,the Americans of the First Battalion of the 351st

Infantry Regiment, entered victorious in Bassano. Thepopulation was at the end of a nightmare.Montegrappa’s barrack was immediately used for thesheltering of the US soldiers, who then left them to aScottish division and a Polish contingent. A shortdistance from the important military infrastructure,“Smalterie ”could finally restore its production tocivilian use. Of fundamental importance to the subse-quent corporate development, aid from the MarshallPlan (enacted in 1947) allowed further constructionexpansion of the company that in 1950 consisted of42,000 square meters and the enrichment of the homeitems range. The years of Reconstruction, characterizedby an urban development, would in the later Boom

The first American tankstransit in town on April 28th

1945.

AboveConstruction elements for thecovering of the new warehouses,before the installation (1945).

NextThe fire-fighting piezo metric tank,which became almost an ideal“campanile” (bell tower), symbolof the company (1945).

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The best of the productionof “Smalterie” on displayat the Milan’s fair in 1949.

period be accompanied by further economic growth,saw the launch of new productions, such as those ofconvectors and industrial radiators. Also, in 1951,taking advantage of the tax benefits provided byCassa del Mezzogiorno (Public effort created in 1950to stimulate economic growth and development in theless developed Southern Italy), as a company initia-tive, Sicily Metallurgical Plant was formed inMilazzo, Sicily, plant dedicated to the production ofbathtubs; it was, in some ways, a “budding” derivedfrom one of the peculiarities of the Bassano’s plant.More important, though, and very significant espe-cially for the strong bond with the territory, were the

spin-offs that were generated by “Smalterie” in theyears following the deaths of Nikolaus Leszl and UgoSostero, who passed away respectively in 1952 and1953: two managers who had been able to drive thecompany’s development with firm hand, both strong-ly missed by employees as well as by much of thelocal population. It is not easy to describe the atmosphere of that era,marked by the advent of an “economic miracle” thatswept the nation and that saw the Veneto’s transfor-mation from peasant ground to industrial district(between 1951 and 1961, in our region, the numberof employees in the primary sector literally halved):

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certainly, Bassano did its part in the Vicenza’sprovince context, which was affected by a socio-eco-nomic revival whose productive status became, overtime, an excellence in the Italian panorama, withstrong brands and leading companies in the interna-tional markets. An historical phase that inaugurated aperiod of widespread prosperity, bringing the“Venezie” back to the commercial prestige lost inMay 1797 with the fall of the Serenissima (ancientRepublic of Venice).“Smalterie” too contributed in fundamental ways tothe territory’s growth: business school and authenticwork university, it produced a lead that formed the

backbone of an emerging iron/steel and mechanicalindustry. In 1954, a few months after Rai (Italianstate broadcaster) had aired the first television pro-gram “nationwide”, Nico Moretto, a former designerat “Smalterie”, gave birth to Alpes Inox, producingmetal furniture for the kitchen. At the Via Trozzettiplant he had seen, for the first time, stainless steelthat came from Sweden “packaged as a precious

The factory in 1950 inan aerial photograph.In full Reconstruction,the company had reached42,000 square metersof covered area.

The work UniversityPietro Piotto’s testimony brings to light how his experience, born andmatured at “Smalterie”, transferred to the benefit of the Bassano’s terri-tory. Hired in “Department 49” with the assignment of controlling clocks,timers and time clocks, which needed to be constantly adjusted (precisionequipment that were for him “adventure’s companions”), Piotto signedthe last time card on June 30th 1975 at 12 a.m.: “Exactly at that timebecause I had to guarantee that the time clocks’ tape was turned over!”.After the conclusion of his experience in the company, Piotto does notabandon these tools so as to start a new activity which managed relation-ships with more than eight hundred different companies.

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metal”, before being pressed, welded, shaped, sandedand superficially finished. Only a year after, AurelioAdolfo Agnesina, prior Director of SmalteriaMetallurgica Veneta, founded in Romano d’Ezzelinothe company Samet (metallurgical company), whichtook off in a very short time by exporting worldwidesinks and kitchen’s ovens and employing hundreds ofemployees. An expected success due to the cominginto the scenes of Faacme (a metal furniture acces-sories company), company founded in 1950 byAgnesina with other partners just in the vicinity of“Smalterie” (Vicolo Parolini). Golden years, as it wassaid, that built, along with new factories, a real hopein the future. An atmosphere of great ferment, whichallowed Walter and Baldassare Pedrazzoli, in 1948,to form the Officina Meccanica IBP Pedrazzoli(machine tools) or to the new partners Bruno Celi e

Giordano Veronese to start in 1955 in Valstagna,Lametal (boilers and water heaters): all people “related”by the common denominator of their previous train-ing experience at “Smalterie”. Emblematic the caseof Giulio Volpato: designer in the technical office andmanager of the radiators’ department, he had fol-lowed the steps of Primo, his father, an employee ofthe historical company, to start his own company in1962, Warm (radiators for water heating systems).The very long list, we could say endless, should per-haps look also at other realities, born in the territorywithout boasting of an offspring from “Smalterie”and often in competition with it: this is the case forElba, founded in 1950 in Marostica by Elio Baggio.Initially a workshop producing economic wood andgas kitchens, it then grew and relocated to a largerplant in Bassano. Baggio also founded later (in 1968)in the disadvantaged area of Borso del Grappa, Sair,an industrial reality that produced water radiators forthe home heating. Matrix and, at the same time, fly-wheel for the develop-ment of a large area, Smalteria Metallurgica Venetacontinued, regardless, to distinguished itself for theparticular attention given to the delicate relationshipsbetween company and employees. To enter into themerit, it must be noted that in 1947 the managementformalized the proposal of linking a bonus program tothe sales volume, creating the basis for a constructiverelationship with the Company’s Board. This agree-ment, a non-negligible detail, largely anticipated thenational legislation and, in the following years, wastreated several times and updated with the Unions.Even the introduction of a range of internal servicesfor the employees, amongst which stood out the canteenand the factory shop, gives an idea of how “Smalterie”

The city farewell to Nikolaus LeszlOn April 29th 1952, after a long illness that he had tried in vain to healfrom, Nikolaus Leszl died.The news strongly impressed the city, tothe point that thousands of people participated to the funeral and alsothe press gave great importance to the event, reporting faithfully thefuneral chronicle: “A kilometer long procession crossed the citystreets. There were about fifty hand carried large flowers crowns. […]Between two thick wings of people, stretching over a distance ofabout two kilometers, the funeral procession passed through headingto the Abbey Church of Santa Maria in Colle (Saint Mary in the Hill).Here, most of the crowd had to stay in the church porch while theMass and the funeral were celebrated. Once the ceremony was termi-nated, in the large front square several people spoke of the distin-guished virtues of the deceased: Augusto Westen, president of“Smalterie”, for the managers accountant Agnesina, for the companycommission Grammatica, for the seniors Campana, for the VicenzaChamber of Commerce attorney Rumor and, in closing, the Mayor ofBassano, Professor Borin who brought the extreme goodbye onbehalf of the city” (Il Gazzettino, May 4th 1952). With the passing ofthe Hungarian manager, a glorious era for “Smalterie”came to an end;Nikolaus Leszl, with his undeniable professional and human quali-ties, had left an indelible sign in the lives of many Bassano people.

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were well-advanced even in the social aspect.The establishment of a night school of arts and craft,designed for the professional training of futureemployees and in which the company’s technicianswere amongst the teachers was a flagship as well;until 1963, when the middle school was established,it gave many young people of the territory a profes-sional basic training.Many other innovations were introduced after thedeath of Leszl and Sostero, when at the helm of thecompany were Mattia Leszl (Csanad 1899 - Bassanodel Grappa 1977), younger brother of Nikolaus andtechnical manager of the establishment, and themanagers Giuseppe Santasilia and Victor Kaspar,respectively managing director and CEO (both from

other Westen’s companies). A team that, while operat-ing on a trail in line with the company’s tradition,worked with great determination to innovate produc-tive cycles, equipping semi-automatic assembly lines,creating specialized departments and rationalizing thevarious processes. An internal reorganization, characterized by the maxi-

“Smalterie” provided afundamental contributionto the growth of the terri-tory: business school andwork university, betweenthe 1950s and 1960s theyproduced a commercialactivity that was thenucleus of an emergingiron and steel industry inthe Bassano’s territory.Faacme, Samet, Lametale Alpes Inox are someof the many companiesborn from “SmalterieMetallurgiche Venete”.

Smalterie, forge of entrepreneurshipAs emerges from the testimony of Silvio Panaro (with the compa-ny from 1967 to 2001), “Smalterie” have been a true forge of muchentrepreneurship, which then fed the economic fabric of the wholeBassano’s territory. Pianaro remembers the company’s attentiontoward labor conditions, the environment and the people employedin the various sectors and department as well as toward the broaderindustrial relations that were opening up in those years.

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Ugo Sostero (1883-1953),CEO of “Smalterie”during the years of thecompany’s great expansion.He was a friend and a col-league of Nikolaus Leszl.

mum efficiency, which allowed good economies ofscale which brought, in 1961, also the definition of anagreement on a production bonus that was, at the time,an emblematic example of contractual agreement. Very good years, great years, in which the nationalGDP grew record annual average rates: between 1951and 1958 by more than 5%, in 1959 by 7% and in1961 by 8%. A period marked by the completion ofthe Autostrada del Sole (Sun’s Toll highway) stretchbetween Milan and Naples (an asphalt’s strip 755

kilometers long built between 1959 and 1964) and bythe increasing subscription to Rai by legions ofItalians (from 90,000 in 1954 to over two millions in1959). Numbers that speak for themselves: for thefirst time in the millennial history of our Peninsula,the share of population employed in industry andservices had exceeded that of those operating in theagricultural sector.In a ridiculous lapse of time (a little more than adecade!) Italy had turned into an in industrialized

Life at SmalterieThe story of Annamaria Ceccon (with the company from 1994 to2011) testifies how it was perceived in those years (the father cameinto the company in 1949) to have employment at “Smalterie”: itwas a matter of status, so much that when one thought about theworkers’categories present in Bassano, one spoke about bankers,teachers and employees of “Smalterie”.“Smalterie” did not represent only a place of employment but alsothe abode of numerous workers. Annamaria’s dad initially startedas worker and then became custodian’s manager. Their house waslocated inside the“company walls”: a really unusual situation, italmost was “a citadel in the citadel”. Homes were equipped withamenities that were not taken for granted in those years: in somecases, in fact, there was also a good heating system. Annamariatells of having changed home multiple times inside the “Smalterie’sresidential complex”.Until 1978, when it was decided to demolish these homes to allowfor the plant’s expansion. She still remembers with emotion thehouse main entrance, with a big wrought-iron gate decorated withtwo lions’s statues that, at the time, looked like giants.To live inside the complex was considered a privilege: a smallmicrocosm had formed where one found space for leasure. Herfather was also going hunting inside the company’s walls; therewas also, for the little ones, a tunnel considered “a place of games”,reaching all the way to the current district of Ca’ Baroncello. InAnnamaria’s memories are also the entrance to the trains for thematerials’supply, the weigh station (and the surprise of havingfound underneath it a “library” probably set up by who had previ-ously lived inside the “Smalterie”) and the sound of the bathtubspresses that had guests startle…

Services on behalf of the workersNumerous were, at that time, the services made available to thecompany’s workers: Annamaria Ceccon remembers that in the1960s the “Befana” was organized for the smaller children (and shestill keeps a box of Monopoli, received as a gift for the occasion);there were then the summer camp at Marzotto, the Saturdaysshowers, for those who did not have this comfort at home, the can-teen for the distribution of food, fabrics, pots, shoes (whichremained active until 1975 and situated in the area underneath thecurrent corporate canteen).Four people were employed at the store counter, amongst whomattorney Gabriele Ceccato’s father (member of the Baxi BOD).From Ceccato’s report the store was something like a warehousewhere one could find anything, such was the variety of offeredproducts, at affordable prices. Particularly, he recalls a green rain-coat, bought right at the store, “so big I had to go around with thebelt twice to be able to wear it!”The store, open also beyond working hours, allowed the companyto create a sort of “loyalty” toward the worker; the relationshipbetween the worker and the company did not finish at the end of ashift, but continued with the visits to the store, a very useful serviceconsidering the economically very difficult years.Ceccato remembers also the teaching that his father transmitted tohim at that time: certain results can be obtained only through greatsacrifices. And Ceccato saw his father doing these sacrificesalready from the early morning, when he left home by bicycle car-rying his mess tin. Being located in the vicinity of the center ofBassano, “Smalterie” were able to establish a relationship with thetownspeople which was almost belonging to a community: “Theproximity to the workplace made this rapport closer, thus the workerwas all work and home”.

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Country. So much that, in 1960, an international juryappointed by the Financial Times attributed to theItalian Lira the Oscar for the steadiest currency inthe West. It should also be mentioned, speaking ofhealth, that the per capita calories consumption wasfinally settled on appropriate indexes and the

Italians’ daily diet had become more diverse. Theserious problem of malnutrition had been almostentirely eliminated. All well, then, like in a dream…Unfortunately, what international scholars had right-ly called “the Italian economic miracle”, suffered,between 1963 and 1964, an abrupt halt: for the Lira

The promotion of anautomatic pressurecooker in stainless steel“Ultra Saeculum” ina 1965 catalogue.

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Next, from left:Comm. Karl HermannWesten: ran the companyfrom the beginning of the1950s until the end of the1960s.The catalogue cover ofRadiant Plates andRadiators of 1965 (withthe logo of the 40th): anexceptional model forphotographer LinoManfrotto, the Bassano’sactress Silvia Monti.

“Smalterie” in an aerialphotograph of 1964.

it was a dramatic two-year period, affected by theworst monetary crisis since the end of the war, dueto a series of political and economic contributorycauses (which we will not analyze here). The bigindustry was forced to radically react, revising thestrategies adopted during the Reconstruction and

Boom years. Even Smalteria Metallurgica Venetahad to restructure its future through new logics thatled the company to reduce distribution costs and,above all, to establish, as explained by the elegant40th Foundation Anniversary’s monograph, “its salesorganization in a large commercial irradiation facili-ty in Milan, giving birth to Commerciale SmalterieMetallurgiche SpA”. A forced choice that underlines,though, the company innate ability, so to speak, ofknowing how to deal with emergencies utilizing itsown resources. Because “if it is true that ours is a

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society that tends, with all its might, toward a freemarket condition, in which everyone is allowed toconsume without limits, it is understandable how thebig issue for all companies is to sell well what theymust produce with ever increasing rhythms, if theywant to maintain a fruitful relationship between pro-

duction, distribution costs, sales prices and revenues”.A clear indication, accompanying an even moreexplicit conclusion, in the belief that it is “a mistaketo continue the projecting in the future of the diffi-culties in which we all struggle today” and that“Smalteria Metallurgica Veneta, besides owning thefactory […], owns also a market, a reason for whichit can look to the future with the cautious confidencethat has always characterized its industrial and com-mercial activities” (from the Monograph of the 40th

Anniversary, 1965). A further effort to overcome thedifficulties of the moment consisted in the compa-ny’s reformation of the productive structure accord-ing to logical Fordism drives: an effort that required

Mattia Leszl, technicaldirector from 1952 to theend of the 1960s.

The elegant stainlesssteel ashtray, promotionalobject created to adver-tise the products of theSaeculum line.

An enamelling history lesson with Mattia LeszlIn 1957 the number 11 of “Realtà Nuova” (New Reality), a presti-gious national magazine published by Istituto Culturale perPubblicazioni e Studi Rotariani (Cultural Institute for RotaryPublications and Studies), proposed a distinguished service by thetitle “Lo smalto nei millenni” (Enamel in the millenniums). Theauthor was none other than engineer Mattia Leszl, at the time tech-nical director for “Smalterie”. The text, still enjoyable today, takesinspiration from a conference that took place in Bassano duringthat year and it traces the history of enamel over time.We have selected a couple of passages, both of great interest, whichare also indicative of the personality of the author.Here is the incipit: “The word enamel in his actual meaning,appears in the advanced Middle Ages, deriving from the German“schmelzen” (melt), from the high antique German “smelzan” or“smaltzan”, while before the generic Latin term “vitrum” was used.Enamel, a compound of opacified or colored glass, applied andfused on metal for embellishment purposes, was of very ancientuse. What is considered the first metal object on which enamel wasapplied (17th century BC), was a bracelet belonging to the EgyptianQueen Aahotep, preserved in the Museum of Bulak, by Cairo”. Regarding recent history, that relative to current times, MattiaLeszl wrote: “Enamelling industry expanded from the beginning oflast century, when it was limited to tableware, to all fields of ourlives. Because we come across daily with kitchens, stoves, washingmachines, refrigerators, reflectors, sinks, bathtubs, we end up notnoticing their enamelling any longer. In most developed countriesyou can find often fuel service stations, homes facades, homescovering, sheet steel enamelled gutters. Bright colors plaques areknown; probably it will not be known that in the United Statesthousands of square meters of enamelled steel blackboards areused. Many are the barrels and other containers enamel lined, toavoid the contact with metals that could be harmful or ruin the tasteand characteristics of liquids, which are used in the wine, spiritsand chemical production, while it is known that the sheet steelenamelled exhaust pipes have a much higher duration”.

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Open doors on the 40th

Anniversary of thecompany’s founding:it is in May 1965.

an increasingly efficient internal organization andthat ended with the creation of a brand new process-ing center by IBM project, in which the traditionalOffice timing and methods merged. In 1967, afterthe death of Victor Kaspar, the company (still repre-sented by President Karl Hermann Westen), appointedAmedeo Cuminatti as CEO. A non-random choice asCuminatti was from Pellizzari, an historical compa-ny in Arzignano (founded in 1901), which had giventhe initial impetus to the electromechanical industryin the Vicenza area, where the manager had recentlyaccomplished a difficult restructuring. At the same

time, in order to lighten the situation of “Smalterie”whose budget was at a loss, it was decided to out-source part of the production: considerably lower.This policy, in conjunction with a series of new andsubstantial investments, gave quick results; in theyears of young protest, when students occupied theheadquarters of Architecture and of Accademia delleBelle Arti (Academy of the Beautiful Arts) in Venice(1968) and in Padua was born the Interfaculty, withthe establishment of the first contacts between stu-dents and workers (engineers and chemical),“Smalterie” found new strength. From 1967 to 1969,

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in fact, the productivity per employee increased sig-nificantly and hiring resumed as well. In 1970,probably not sharing the decision to assign signifi-cant resources to in a joint venture with ZanussiElettrodomestici (Zanussi Appliances), the companyIbelsa was established in Fuenmayor, Spain. The fac-tory intended for the production of bathtubs, utilizedmachines, equipment and technicians from the coun-

terpart department of the Bassano’s plant and itapplied its organizational system; the competitiveadvantage, though, was provided by labor costs, theSpanish branch, maybe interpreted as a possibleattempt of disengagement by the company,Cuminatti gave his resignations, passing his assign-ment to manager Mario Emanuele Bianchetti. In ashort time, he replaced the entire executive team,keeping for himself the financial/administrative partand delegating the control of strategic areas such asproduction, marketing and personnel management toa young team who had a good education in economicsand business organization. It must be noted thatright at that time, in 1971, the historic VenetianUniversity Ca’ Foscari, had joined the Bachelor ofBusiness Economics to the one of Economics andBusiness (established in 1935), in response to thegrowing needs of small and medium- sized enterprisesin the Triveneto area. Bianchetti’s team intention,tackled with determination and courage was, fromthe beginning, to recover market positions in lucra-

At the top, from left:the company’s boothat the InternationalExhibition of DomesticArts in Torino (1965).A customers delegationvisiting the company (1966).

On the right: the speakers’table at Convegno delleForze di Vendita(Conference of SalesForce), organized in 1967.

Below: a page of theSamet catalogue“Apparecchiature elet-trodomestiche in acciaioinossidabile” (Stainlesssteel appliances) 1969.

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tive sectors: available resources were thereforeemployed to modify the product range with externalacquisitions, amongst which was that of the exemplarySmalteria Abruzzese di Sambuceto (AbruzzeseEnamelling of Sambuceto), situated between Pescaraand Chieti and specialized in the production of bathtubs.The successful project, thanks also to a minorityshare by Zanussi, which contributed to limit the eco-nomic engagement for “Smalterie”, was significantlyfollowed by the purchase of another company: ZarpaSpA of Pove del Grappa, which also produced bath-tubs. The new strategy, including also precise agree-ments with the Labor Union (which forecasted a tem-porary slowdown in the hiring), gave positive feed-back and in 1971-1972 the Smalteria MetallurgicaVeneta could enjoy a moderate recovery, found forexample in a growing annual sales volume report onthe employee.It was, however, a flash in the pan: serious cyclicalfactors were indeed taking shape on the horizon: anatmosphere of international precariousness affectedthe economy, due in part to the energy crisis of 1973,while the Peninsula was distressed by intense Unionstruggles. Heated atmosphere, made even more dra-matic at “Smalterie” that same year, by the death ofKarl Hermann Westen. His death, sudden and unex-pected, brought his sons Peter, Carlo and Ruth to thecompany’s leading position. Still relatively young butdetermined to return the company to top positions,especially operationally, they did not follow the pathtraced by their father, who had assigned a decentadministrative autonomy to his managers. In 1974Bianchetti resigned from the position of ChiefExecutive Officer while the company recorded a con-tinuous and concerning worsening. A situation that

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exploded the following year, with Christmas aroundthe corner, when “Smalterie” were liquidated and itsemployees laid off. At the end of the Holy Year of“Renewal and Reconciliation”, proclaimed by PopePaul VI on the occasion of the 25th Jubilee and on the50th anniversary of its foundation, SmalteriaMetallurgica Veneta closed its historic doors. Theconsequences of such an event for the entire territorywere dramatic and painful: socially, the plant closingleft more than a thousand people out of work, eco-nomically, the repercussions on the generated activi-ties were nothing short of catastrophic. A calamitythat marked the end of an era and, partially, of aschool of thought. But not of the company.Fortunately, many positive forces, expression both ofthe politic and of the business world, activated them-selves rather quickly to identify new scenarios andpossible prospects for “Smalterie”: amongst thesealso the Italian government, then led by GiulioAndreotti, in the person of Industry Minister Carlo

Donat Cattin, while in Bassano Mayor SergioMartinelli was experiencing feverish hours and socialtension moments in an attempt to provide an effectiveanswer to the serious town situation, which day afterday was risking the impasse.The answer came from Zanussi, partner of“Smalterie” that, after a series of evaluations, tookover the company and, in January of 1977, reopenedthe factory’s gates: wonderful news for the area andfor the employees (for the most part reintegrated),corroborated by the group managers’ decision totransfer from Rovigo to Bassano the heat and sanitaryproduction and to focus the activity on the heatingsector, introducing - amongst the first plants in Italy- the first gas domestic appliances through the manu-facturing of wall mounted boilers. A choice, as it isusually said, spot-on and in step with the times, sincethe extension of the “methanization” (natural gas)dates back exactly to those years, with the establish-ment of public natural gas distribution in a growingnumber of cities. This specialization, well emphasized by the new com-pany name, Zanussi Climatizzazione, caused alsopainful consequences such as the closing of wholedepartments traditionally associated with trademarksof Smalteria Metallurgica Veneta. But it was a neces-sary therapy, which gave positive results: the spe-cialization in a particular type of production at theexpense of the cessation of other accomplishments,marked a distinct philosophy. In other words, a strate-gic sign, in the light of that “resilient” attitude that, byovercoming the evident difficulties through theresearch for alternative opportunities, had alreadybeen, in the past, part of vital decisions for the destinyof the Via Trozzetti’s company. It should be additionally

A phase of the Sale ForcesMeeting Westen of 1973.

Opposite page fromthe top: the Westen boothat Mostra Convegno of1968 and at Macef ofMilan in 1973.

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The promotion of acollection of pots andpans in porcelain steelWesten Rossana in brightred color: “with whitedecorations, white interiorand armored stainlesssteel border, unalterable,solid, right weight, suit-able for any heat source,dishwasher safe andbrighten up the wholekitchen!” (1971).

noted that Zanussi also moved to the Bassano’s plantthe production of Triplex boilers and that, thanks tothe remarkable improvements made to the“Smalterie’s” warehouses as a result of accuratedesign verification and the introduction of new con-struction technologies, this production turned out tobe a real commercial success. Of fundamental importance was the technical con-tribution of the employees, demonstrating how theywere professionally prepared and how the technicalculture gained by the staff over the years could leadto tangible benefits. A quality that was fortunatelyunderstood and appreciated by the managers whocame to Bassano with Zanussi: led by GiovanniCattaneo, new Managing Director and CEO of thecompany, they were quickly able to exploit thatsolid expertise, recognizing also some of their ownlimits that derived from the corporate culture from

which they came. The new path gained connotation- retrieving in this a consolidated practice ofSmalteria Metallurgica Veneta in favour of the con-stant updating of the human capital- also for theorganization of training courses for middle manage-ment, department heads and technicians and for theestablishment of a climate of collaboration andmutual trust between management and workers. Thegood internal relations established, in 1984, theoptimum prerequisite to deal, without tensions, witha new change of ownership, following the crisis thataffected the Zanussi’s group, sold that year to theSwedish Electrolux.Zanussi Climatizzazione was, in fact, acquired byOfficine Costruzioni Elettriche Angelo Nocivelli,better known with the acronym Ocean, perhaps ini-tially interested in taking over other divisions in theappliances industry group. Assuming the name Ocean

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Idroclima, the company maintained the previous lay-out essentially unchanged until two years later, whenOcean incorporated Samet of Romano d’Ezzelino(whose origin we have already mentioned) by trans-ferring the assembly lines to Bassano. The operation led to an increase in the number ofemployees and precious synergies which helped thefollowing company recovery, thanks also to thestrong growth on the market for wall mounted boilers.An exponential development, objectively observablealso on a statistical and economic plan: in 1999,when Ocean sold the Idroclima division to the Britishmultinational Baxi Group Ltd, the sales volume hadsignificantly increased and the international marketshares much greater than those constituted by sales inItaly. On December 24th, on the Eve of the year 2000Jubilee, John Paul II opened the Holy Door at St.Peter’s. A new millennium was about to begin.

The first wall mountedboiler, Triplex, producedunder Zanussi brand,marked the beginning ofa new era for the companyin Via Trozzetti.

NOTES TO THE TEXTThe writing of this essay was based primarily on the following texts:Giovanni Favero, Pentole smaltate, industriali stranieri, copertoni bruciatie caldaie murali: le Smalterie a Bassano tra impresa e storia, 2014.Francesco Berti, Niccolò Leszl. Un ingegnere mitteleuropeo per il decolloindustriale di Bassano in “L’Illustre bassanese”, XIV - n. 77 May 2002.

Consulted bibliographyNumerous information and plenty of documentation about the company and itsproduction have been obtained from publications printed on the occasions of the25th and 40th anniversaries of the company’s foundation.SMV, La SMV di Bassano del Grappa nel 25° della fondazione, Bassano, 1950.SMV, I 40 anni di vita della Smalteria e Metallurgica Veneta, Bassano, 1965.Equally useful was the systematic consultation of the catalogues and the paperadvertising tools, published in the years by SMV.

Other significant referencesCesco Chinello, Storia di uno sviluppo capitalistico: Porto Marghera e Venezia 1951-1973. Roma, 1975. Giorgio Roverato, La terza regione industriale in “Storia d’Italia. Le Regioni.Il Veneto”. Torino, 1984.Rolf Petri and Maurizio Reberschak, La Sade e l’industria chimica e metallurgica in “Storia dell’industria elettrica in Italia. 1926-1945”. Bari, 1993.Giovanni Favero and Marco Mondini, Bassano 1915-18. Istituzioni società consumi. Bassano 1999.Livio Bortoloso, Tre quarti di secolo della SMV, Bassano (1925-2000): il capitale sociale d’impresa. Schio, 2001.Stefano Berton, Giovanni Favero, Roberto Milani and Denis Vidale, Lo smalto e la ruggine: domande, documenti e testimonianze sulle Smalterie di Bassano. Castelfranco Veneto, 2002.Antimo Verde, La crisi della lira del 1963-64. Roma, 2002.Giovanni Favero, Le Smalterie dopo le Smalterie. Bassano, 2004.Giorgio Roverato, L’industria vicentina nel Novecento in “Storia dell’industria vicentina dal Medioevo a oggi”. Padova, 2004.Francesco Genitoni, Linee di cottura tra gli asparagi e i “bisi del Grappa”in “Smalto Porcellanato - Tecnologia & Mercati”, XLVII - n. 2 2005.Giovanni Favero, Il Sindacato alle Smalterie di Bassano, 1945-1975.Venezia, 2006.Giovanni Favero, Bassano, 1956-2006: una città che cambia volto in “50 anni di Rotary: mezzo secolo di storia bassanese”. Bassano, 2007.Gianni Toniolo, La crescita economica italiana, 1861-2011 ne “L’Italia e l’economia mondiale dall’Unità a oggi”. Francoforte sul Meno, 2013.

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For an outside observer interested in economic andmanagement facts, the company is of great interest.

Its long history and its many transformations place it atthe junction between two major themes that permeatethe recent debate on the evolution of “doing business”in Italy: innovation and resiliency.From one side, in fact, the ability to innovate, anticipateor even create new markets and transform entire sectorsis seen by many as the key to maintain a competitiveposition, defendable on markets that are always morevolatile, uncertain and threatened by new operators.The debate over industrial issues places the emphasismainly on the explosive character of innovation: newtechnologies or new ways of serving the markets,destroy the prior order, create spaces for new compa-nies, agile and innovative, and transform the produc-tion geography and the creation of value. On the otherhand, however, both economic facts and managementexperts as well as the public opinion, fall in love withthe “resilient” companies, those able to withstandadversities and respond to the technological and industrialrevolution retaining their own individuality.

The debate, in other words, now turns toward thenecessity of renewing, in a radical way what is doneand the face of the actors that do it; now it focuses onthe resilience and persistence of companies able toadapt to the big economic, technological and socialtransformations, while maintaining a strong bond withtraditions, community of origin and places of birth.Baxi has been able, over time, to balance innovationand “resistance”, by double tying itself to a place:Bassano. The establishment in Via Trozzetti has beenthe container of a peculiar alchemy made of innovationand tradition, of an ability to change without sacrificinghistory and culture gained in the past. More: thanks tothis compound, the company, which changed owner-ship and property, has been able to keep steady feet ina territory and preserve a significant share of employ-ment, maintaining crucial functions such as production,research and development. What was born in 1925 as aplant for the production of enamelled objects is todaythe largest plant in Europe for the design and produc-tion of wall hung boilers, part of one of the largestinternational groups of the sector, BDR Thermea.

The water heatersenamelling line in 1983.

Next page:the wall hung boilerSolaria Check, brandedOcean, and an advertisingpage that publicized it(1985).

The corporate evolutionin the last thirty yearsA winning growth, based on diffused management and internationalization

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The wall hung boilerSecura, Ocean brand(1984).

The more I listened to the Baxi protagonists of yesterdayand today and I gathered documentation and data torebuild history, management styles and critical moments,the more an adjective to describe it and frame it wascoming to my mind: obstinate. In dictionaries, the termobstinacy has two meanings: the first one refers to therigid and stubborn attitude of who does not budge froman idea deliberately, despite evidence to the contrary andcommon sense. The second meaning refers to someonewho perseveres, even with humility and kindness,despite the adversities because he is sure of the goodnessof what he does, of his ideas and his capabilities. Baxi isobstinate according to this second definition.

Within the boundaries of the Bassano’s plant, severalgenerations of managers, employees and workers havebeen able to keep alive and renew, when necessary, asolid corporate culture, they have renovated and reinter-preted skills and knowledge, they have built andrenewed a strong identity. The deep awareness of theseelements is the obstinacy’s engine with which Bassano’sBaxi has managed to find new markets, adapt the skillsto new challenges and demands, to constantly improveprocesses and managerial styles. To make Bassano’sBaxi interesting is not only the balance between innova-tion and tradition, but also the way this balance wasachieved, the set of choices, practices and managingphilosophies where this obstinacy is substantiated. Thefollowing pages want to provide a reading of the compa-ny’s management in the last thirty years, identifyingsome “red wires” that run along the evolution from1984, the year of the passage of the company to theOcean group of Luigi Nocivelli, until today, startingfrom the testimonies and the stories of the managementteam that led the company during this period. The redwires are particularly the peculiar approach to the productinnovation, based on the ability to read the marketand rearrange internal and external competencies todevise advanced solutions quickly; the openness to theinternational markets supported by the consistent abilityof providing customer service and support; the attentionto the consolidation and renewal of an organizationalculture through of internal career paths and the support-ing of young members. The chapter is based on inter-views with the management team that lead the companyin the 1984-2010 period - Dino Boesso (humanresources), Tonino Vettori (operations), BartoloBavaresco (administration), Giusto Mario Taglia (salesItaly), Lamberto Del Grosso (research and development)

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and to the current Managing Director, Alberto Favero.The reconstruction of the history of the last 30 years ofthe company availed itself of secondary sources andprevious reconstructions.

1984-2014: from Ocean to BDR Thermea GroupThe debacle of Zanussi and the simultaneous expansionthat involved Ocean of the Nocivelli’s family played infavor of the latter that, in 1984, acquired the Bassano’splant - then Zanussi Climatizzazione - and had theopportunity to introduce its brand in the thermo-sani-tary sector, using the prestige of the acquired brand.The operation was successful especially for favorable

conditions that presented themselves to the Nocivelli’s:the acquisition of Zanussi Climatizzazione was at 40%of the company’s real value (estimated at about 35 bil-lion of lira and purchased at 15) and allowed Nocivellito gradually absorb Zanussi’s prior losses, lowering theoverall gain, obtaining therefore a significant tax bene-fit. Although initially attracted by the tax incentive,Nocivelli regularly visited Bassano and he graduallygot to know the company, its competences and itsspecifics. According to narrations of individuals whosaw the transition from Zanussi to Ocean, Nocivelli fellin love with the company and gave up his original plan:eliminate the production of boilers to maintain that of

The Ocean’s boothin 1994.

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radiators. The design, the production flexibility, themanufacturing knowledge of the Bassano’s plant per-suaded him to persevere and contribute to the company’sgrowth supporting it by the entry into new markets.The Nocivelli’s acquisition was followed by anintense effort to rationalize the plant. In March 1984,a Union agreement was stipulated, that provided for aprofit-making reshaping and a reduction of theBassano’s workforce (from 297 employees to 240)and of the Sambuceto’s (from 121 employees to 107).Lastly, to distribute the fixed costs of the Bassano’sstructure, the Nocivelli’s group introduced new produc-tions to the plant with the intent of obtaining bettereconomies of scale, in particular through the acquisi-tion of Samet, company that produced stove tops andovens, and the transferring of its production toBassano. Starting from 1986, the results of Nocivelli’smanagement became evident and the companyachieved the first balanced budget in 1988 andincreased profits in the following administrations. TheNocivelli’s acquisition was an important transition forthe Bassano’s company even for a different aspect: theopening to international markets.Starting from 1994, the boilers’ sales volumes in theinternational markets began to reach the same levels ofthose of domestic sales, surpassing them the followingyear. Nocivelli, as said, convinced of the boilers’potential, saw the international markets as the main

way for the company’s consolidation. The expertise ofthe Ocean group on several export markets, allowedfor Nocivelli to bring the company outside the domes-tic bounds. The first market was Austria, followed, after a fewyears, by Great Britain. The latter was the true key forthe company’s transformation: the challenges posed bythe boilers’ design for the British market allowed thecompany, on one hand, to put to good use the skillsmatured in the previous decades and, on the other hand,to deal with new demands and the development of newcompetencies. To design and fine-tune boilers for theBritish market, which means the product’s study and theapproval from the gas distributor, took years. The neces-sary certifications were complex and required the com-pany to learn how to serve a new market. To go intointernational markets for the company meant to learnhow to deal with diversified requests, product’s specifi-cations and regulatory systems. In other words, not onlydid the company start to export, but it also learned howto produce more sophisticated and complex items, con-tinually innovating its products. The Ocean period wasfull of relaunches: rationalization, automation, logicalmanagement geared to efficiency and openness to theinternational markets have been the distinctive charac-teristics of the Nocivelli’s fourteen years of manage-ment. Contextually, in 1998, within the company, aworkers’ association started with the intent of develop-ing social, cultural and sport’s activities which derivefrom the company’s reality. An entity that favoured theexchange of ideas and experiences, and the getting toknow each other amongst the members. Regardless ofthe positive results achieved by Ocean, in 1998 theBrescia’s group deemed appropriate to sell theBassano’s company, which it did not consider part of its

Information’s benefitsIn the testimony of Maurizio Tagliapietra (with the company since1988) the fundamental importance of the company’s computeriza-tion in those years is confirmed: in a short time great results hadbeen achieved. “Thanks to computerization - Tagliapietra remem-bers - all working and accounting had been rationalized, brought toequilibrium”.

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core business and it gave in to the advances of a Britishgroup, Baxi Partnership Ltd. For Baxi the acquisition ofthe Italian company was accompanied by the concentra-tion on the activities of design and production of thewall hung boilers in the Bassano’s plant. Additionally,Baxi halted the production of radiators in 2000 andstopped the production of bathtubs in the Sambuceto’splant in 2001. The excess resulting from the plant’sreorganization in Bassano, were reabsorbed thanks tothe increasing shares in international market, conqueredby the wall hung and floor standing boilers by Baxi SpA.In 2009 Baxi Group and De Dietrich Remeha merged

to create one of the most important group in the sector,BDR Thermea, present in more than 70 markets world-wide, with over 6,300 employees and sales volume ofmore than 1,7 billion Euros in 2013.

The invoice of the firstboiler sold in Argentina(12.05.1992).

CRALThe words of Fabio Pegoraro (with the company since 1995) and VascoNicoletti (with the company since 1989) recount the origin of the actualCRAL (Company’s Employees Recreational Association). The ideatook form in 1998 on the occasion of the annual inter-company ama-teur soccer game between the team Ocean of Verolanuova and OceanIdroclima of Bassano, where Vittorio Merlo, active in this type ofevents, became aware of the Association present in the Brescia’sbranch with benefited, in addition to the enrollment shares for the reg-istered members, also by a share provided by the company itself. Afterdiscussing the initiative both with the company and the Union in 1999,CRAL started with the Statue’s drafting and the announcement to theemployees of the enrollment opening, which in 2000 reached rightaway 437 members. The very first activity was organized on January19th 2000: a snow trip on the “Alpe di Susi”, which was an immediatesuccess. From 2001, the activities grew in a very important way, gen-erating in the various typologies 30-35 propositions every year (touristand cultural trips, recreational and sport’s activities): simultaneouslythe subscriptions grew in number, which will bring the Association,nowadays, to reach 700 members (including a significant number ofprevious employees). The spirit that permeates CRAL is authentic: theAssociation is lived as a value, it is sharing, sometimes it is also diffi-cult, but it is surely acquaintance if not friendship, it is a way to knowthe person that works by you or that you don’t even know, which youdiscover has the same interests, expectations or simply the desire togive a meaning to the being together every single day, and the days aremany, in the working life. It also becomes a sharing moment with yourown family as the advantages are extended to them as well.

The international market and the belonging to a big GroupGiovanni Pilichi (with the company since 1996) confirms the com-pany’s ability in all its functions to promptly follow the differentmarket needs for products and services. The market has been in astrong expansion (1985-2005), therefore the company’s flexibility,rapidity and responsiveness were key factors for conquering marketshares. The company found then in the reference Group Baxi first,then BDR, the right strategic support to be able to maintain the com-petitiveness, especially when markets, from the initial expansionphase, became more mature and structured in their demand. The lat-ter one has become always more complex, demanding, regulated andsegmented, requiring an always increasing attention to innovationand industrialization rather than speed and flexibility.

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The changes of property and the continuityThe history of “Smalterie”, from Westen to BDRThermea, is marked by the alternation of differentproperties. For the workers, the managers and the com-munities where the companies are located, acquisitions,sales and merges are connected to true concerns rela-tive to the maintenance of employment, to critical func-tions like production and design and especially to thepreservation and renewal of the know-how.When acquisitions are by foreign groups, the concernsincrease. In recent years, for example, in our Countrythere has been much debate about the acquisitions ofprestigious brands of the made in Italy as Bulgari orLoro Piana from the French group Lvmh or of Gucci,Brioni and Bottega Veneta from the rival Ppr. The fearin front of these waves of acquisitions is partially linkto the fact that Italy risks to leave to others the valuegenerated by its manufacturing savoir faire. Secondly,there is the concern about the dilution of the made inItaly DNA in the case in which the acquiring partieswould like to exploit the Italian companies’ brands, but,at the same time, for cost reasons, have the productionmoved elsewhere. Opposite to this prospect of gradual emptying of com-petencies and of the consequent job losses, anotherperspective looks at the acquisition by foreign groups,solid and well positioned in the international arena, asa development opportunity. This is what seemed tohave happened to the Bassano’s plant. Despite thealternation of different ownerships, the genius loci ofthe Via Trozzetti’s establishment has had the opportu-nity of expressing itself to its best in the last thirtyyears thanks to the opportunities offered by the variousgroups that maintained its control. The managers Iinterviewed underlined on several occasions how the

The efficient communica-tion of the change ofproperty from OceanIdroclima to Baxi in anadvertising page of 1999.

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different acquisitions along the years can be both amisfortune - cause of slowdowns, complex reorganiza-tions and restructuring - and a fortune: with each owner-ship change, the company and its human resources hadto demonstrate of being able to do better than others,of being able to bring value to the realities assumingcontrol of the company. The incentive to innovateand renew itself, in other words, was never missingthanks to the new acquisitions. As Nocivelli, first cau-tious, then “fell in love with boilers” and learned toappreciate the Bassano’s plant design and manufactur-ing skills, so the different managements of Baxi Groupand of BDR Thermea acquired the company appreciat-ing its experience and its potential. For example,amongst all the affiliates of Baxi, that of Bassano wasand is the one with more experience on the internationalmarkets. For the group leader, the competencies ofinternationalization and penetration in foreign mar-kets, the service culture and the responsiveness todemands, were of fundamental importance to the inter-nationally opening of the entire group. The Bassano’sdistinctive skills, in other words, were spread to thewhole group and have increased its ability to efficient-ly serve a variety of markets.Sophisticated manufacturing skills and speed in thestudying and realization of innovative technical solu-tions are two of the assets that this company has beenable to make available to the different realities that heldits reins. An episode of the Ocean period is particular-ly significant: one of the many small challenges posedby the patron tells a lot about the ability to activate aquality know-how on innovative projects. One dayNocivelli showed the design team the handle of his carand he asked them to make one alike to be inserted in abathtub produced by the company. Taking on the chal-

The new wall hung boilerLuna 2000 in an ad:compact and powerful,it achieved immediatesuccess under theheadline “Comfortablelife projects”.

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From left to right: conven-tion of 1999 and the BaxiGroup booth in 2002 atthe Milan trade show.

Above, the logo for thewall hung boiler Lunalaunched in 1994.

lenge, they proceeded with the first version, which was,however, soundly rejected. The second version,installed on the bathtub and obtained by replicatingexactly the handle of the car, was finally accepted andNocivelli commended the entire team.Nocivelli’s involvement in the daily operations of thecompany was frequent. It was not uncommon to see theentrepreneur and his collaborator, Renato Ripari, walkaround the plant with work tools. Often one would findthem filing three-way valves. Even if this strongpresence could often result excessive, it is also thanksto this involvement in the property that the companyfound the stimuli to get back on its feet.Competencies related to the design and production orthe speed in the elaboration of innovative solutions, arenot the only factors convincing the buyers about thequality of the purchase and of the necessity of support-ing the Bassano’s plant in the expression of its poten-tial. On the management and administrative side, the

discourse is similar. After the acquisition by theNocivelli, one of the options on the table was to relo-cate the administration from Bassano to Verolanuova,in the province of Brescia, for the reduction of person-nel. The option was immediately discarded: theBassano’s leadership and Ocean itself realized that thepeculiar blend of management and operational skillswould be weakened, a damage to be avoided. To someextent, the Bassano’s plant represented an interestingtest bench for unique and innovative managementchoices, which allowed the Bassano’s management toprovide services to the whole Ocean group on restruc-turing and managerial innovations. For example, themerging between Zanussi Climatizzazione and Oceanwas amongst the first ones in Italy: the Bassano’s manage-ment team, at the time, was unfamiliar with mergers,however, the need to complete the process led them tostudy the specifics and the technicalities of the mergers’processes and to elaborate an optimal solution. The

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skills matured in this situation were then reversed onseveral partners of ElFi (Elettrica Finanzia - financialfounded by Nocivelli brothers in 1973, Editor’s Note).

The innovation: combination of knowledge,competencies and market signalsThe rediscovered energy followed by the acquisition byOcean translated itself in a decisive investment on theproduct’s innovation, culminated in the Luna series,connected to the passage from Ocean to Baxi and, morerecently in the design and realization of niche productsas high output cascade boilers, cabinets, built-in boxesand hybrid systems.

The innovation process at Baxi is not necessarilydriven by pure research, by technical and engineer-ing technical development which need applicationsand markets research. Rather, it is a process basedon the ability of incorporating a range of ideas,information and feedbacks that originate from mar-kets and partners, combining it with the solutionsand the competencies present both within the com-pany and at the suppliers.A recent anecdote helps make this philosophy con-crete. In 2003, due to the introduction in England ofnew regulations regarding boilers’ efficiency, Baxihad to design new heat exchangers. Originally the

The Baxi Group’s boothin Frankfurt in 2003.

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designing of the new heat exchangers was started inGreat Britain where Baxi had access to a foundry, inwhich Baxi thought to be able to realize the compo-nent. The work on the component went on for a yearwithout any result worthy of note. They achieved analuminum block that presented various problems.Moved by the necessity of resolving the malfunc-tions, the British design team visited Bassano andasked the local designers to contribute to the project.Amongst the different Baxi’s suppliers, one hadrecently developed a building process on aluminum,an alloy bonding derived from the production of heatexchangers for aircrafts, helicopters and motorcy-cles. Not only did this supplier have advanced skillson this process, he also had an adequate oven to exe-cute it and he did already produce heat exchangersfor various clients in other sectors. The Baxi Italydesign team contacted the supplier about the request,communicated the specifications and obligations andstarted a co-design process that resulted in the newcomponent’s production. This ability to rapidlymobilize competencies within the company and inthe suppliers’ network to promptly serve the customer- external and internal - was one of the factors thatincreased the Bassano establishment’s considerationin the course of the years. Even the planning anddevelopment of the first Luna boilers series, in 1994,is a testimony of Baxi’s integration ability andrapidity in formulating new solutions, often drawingfrom knowledge and solutions matured in differentareas. The constant attention to product updating andincreased functionality offered to the market is theengine of the continuous partnership research thatBaxi leads, in order to co-design innovative solu-tions. Drawing from abilities and competencies

already present in other companies, perhaps in otherbranches or sectors, is the main reason for the timereduction in the development of innovative products.A process whose length - and time to market - woulddecidedly be longer if the company developed thesolutions autonomously. In 2006, at the peak of theproduction’s capacity, in Bassano, the third genera-tion of the Luna series, Luna 3, was developed. Aproduct that incorporated innovative solutions andconcepts, the first to introduce a microprocessorelectronic control. To do this, the company reachedout to a giant in the electronics, yet very culturallyfar from the heating sector. The agreement materializedin a co-participation of Baxi in the application ofelectronics to the heating sector and of this companyin the design and production of specific micro-processors. The outcome of the collaboration waspositive. It is one thing to know which solutions areavailable in the heating’s area, in contiguous sectorsor in your own suppliers portfolio. Another is toaccess it and start fruitful partnerships with the holdersof the know-how necessary to develop new con-cepts and solutions. A recurring feature in Baxi’shistory is that of starting relations with partners andsuppliers where the human dimension and therespectful rapports facilitate the collaboration, co-design and co-development of innovative solutions.The co-operation with the electronics’ supplier issignificant from this point of view. It was not easy tohave yourself listened to and even less to ask for col-laboration to a sector giant so structured and impor-tant. A second important factor in creating this rela-tion with the German giant was Baxi’s history. OftenItalian companies, at the eyes of German ones, arelooked upon with a mixture of respect and concern:

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on one side the creativity, competence and qualityare appreciated; on the other side, there is the con-cern about the Italian’s reliability regarding quanti-ties, delivery times and punctuality. Baxi’s longhistory allowed the overcoming of the first difficul-ties and skepticism. The Bassano’s management, inother words, had developed a “story” to be told andto use as leverage to start these relations. It was notabout cosmetics. On the contrary, the long historyfrom the Westen to Baxi enabled the capturing of thepartners’ attention. Once the attention was captured,the space to discuss products, projects and processesopened up. In the maintenance of these relations, themain adhesive is represented by good and cordialpersonal relations with the interlocutors of the part-ner’s companies.

The innovation’s culture based on the prompt answerto the new needs expressed by the market, especiallyby the international markets, as the company gradual-ly opened abroad, is the result of strategic choicesmatured during the transition from Zanussi to Ocean.During the Zanussi’s period, in fact, the strategic orien-tation toward innovation, at least initially, aimed atthe introduction of radically new concepts in theworld of boilers, importing solutions, from aestheticsto functionality, typical of the home appliance.Zanussi’s strategy was to do what other did not. Thecompany wanted to produce boilers close, in conceptand aesthetic, to the home appliance. Still today, in thecompany’s showroom in Bassano, the first squareboiler is on display, which utilized tempered glassused for the kitchens. According to many, it was a

The wall hung boilerLuna, branded Baxi(1999).

Luna Platinum, boiler ofthe Luna range in itsfourth generation and theconcept “THINK intelli-gence within”, the exclu-sive system that makes itthink “in an intelligentway” (2010).

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The trade show boothmaintained by After SalesService Center Idrogaswhere the Triplex boileris displayed and theassistance mandateawarded to Idrogas.

good project. However the concretization of thishybrid between boiler and appliance proved to be dif-ficult. In those years Zanussi was engaged in an inter-national exchange with the Spanish Cointra. Cointraproduced components and wall hung boilers: it wasamongst the sector’s main players and it purchasedrefrigerators from Zanussi, which forced ZanussiClimatizzazione to purchase components from Spain.The boiler revealed itself to be a failure: the Spanishcomponents proved to be problematic and the marketdid not appreciate the revisiting of the boiler accord-ing to the style and concepts of an appliance. Thisfailure was responsible for a substantial revision ofthe company’s strategy: rather than making radicallynew products, the company focused on the construc-tion quality, the durability and on the technical per-formance of the product. It is from this company’sredefinition that was born the range that adopted thename “Luna” in 1994.

The internationalization: from Bassanoto the foreign marketsSince the Ocean period, and in an increasing measurein the period followed by the Baxi acquisition, thegrowth style of the Bassano’s company was its abilityto broaden its activity’s radius to markets culturallyclose to the Italian one, or very distant, as the emergingmarkets. In this sense the company’s history is verysimilar to that of the reality of the made in Italy: thequality of the workers and the density of manufacturingand design competencies have been the most effectivebusiness cards for the Italian product abroad. In thissituation, one can recognize a specific orientation byBaxi toward new markets as well.The company’s approach is not focused on imposing aproduct thought for the specifics and the requests of thedomestic market, but rather on the “translation” and theadaptation of its abilities and solutions to the specificrequests and obligations manifested abroad.

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Since the Zanussi’s times, the Bassano’s plant distin-guished itself for the quality of its workers’ skills. Whenthe boilers’ production was transferred from Rovigo toBassano, the issues encountered with the product wereresolved. Zanussi quickly realized the guaranteed dif-ference of the competencies at the Bassano’s company,particularly of the workshop and welding workers.Nevertheless, the Zanussi’s period was troubled andthings, especially in the last years, turned for the worse.In this situation, what saved the factory, maintaining thesame employment levels and re-launching the company,was the decisive orientation abroad that began withOcean and that continued in the following years.In the specific, how did the Bassano’s Baxi open newcommercial markets such as in Turkey, Russia, China,the USA and the other 50 markets in which it operates?On one side, as it was mentioned, quality of the productand innovative rapidity played a fundamental role. Onthe other side, the groups that acquired the Bassano’scompany contributed, from time to time, from a finan-cial or commercial point of view, to the expansion ofthe company’s activities. However, to actualize allopportunities requires to be able to “learn” from theplaces where one goes, from the ability to read theexplicit and hidden needs, capitalize all the informationon the new context in which one operates.From this point of view, the landing on the US marketis explanatory. When Baxi opened itself to theAmerican market, it found a difficult situation. First ofall, Americans did not know the product: wall hungboilers were not widespread, the American people wereused to the floor standing type, of old design. They didnot even know what regulations needed to be applied.Baxi undertook the task of studying and codifying, withthe US authorities, the standards and the specifics for

the approval of wall hung boilers.Initially, the American certification entity, in theabsence of a specific legislation, wanted to apply that inforce for nuclear power plants. In particular, they wantedto know and certify the entire production chain, fromthe raw materials to the finished product: copper, steel,everything. The low voltage was an element thatreceived particular attention: it presented, in fact, variousrisks of malfunctioning. Also in this case, however,thanks to a the trials and tests done internally, theBassano’s company was able to recreate all the opera-

On the wall of an elegantkitchen, the wall hungLuna is the protagonist inthis advertising page forthe foreign markets. As theslogan says “Design andpower for a full range”.

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From left to rightInstallation of high-effi-ciency Baxi’s boilers atBiddeford Ice Arena inMaine (2005). Brand and product promo-tional actions in Hungarywith the “Baxi van” in2008. The Baxi roadshowwith the van set up withproducts and communica-tion material started in2005 and reached theCzech Republic, Poland,Romania, Lithuania,Estonia, Belarus, Serbia,Greece and Bulgaria.

A moment of thecelebration for thetwentieth year of Baxi’spresence in Hungary(September 2014).

tional conditions that would be present in America,reducing the risk of the components’ malfunctioning tothe minimum. Always in the USA, another issue wasthe heat exchanger: on each individual piece a plaquehad to be applied certifying the component, but forspace issues, this could not be accomplished. An agree-ment was reached, thanks to various communicationsand travels to the US by the Baxi team, and the positiveoutcome of the negotiations avoided later problems. Ingeneral, the boiler concept in America was understood:the company put itself in the position of someone whoneeded to understand what the market wanted at the

end, without imposing solutions. Baxi said to the part-ners: “make us understand, we will do the right productfor you, help us serve you to the best of our abilities”.Americans were captivated by this way of doing asthey were not accustomed to the idea of “service to themarket” starting from production.More recently, the company has acquired always moreconsolidated positions in new markets, difficult toserve, at least in the initial phase. In the last 8 years, thecompany had to explore a series of markets both invirtue of opportunities that presented themselves and invirtue of a total group reorganization. In 2006 in

The birth of a new division: Baxi InternationalPaolo Pesavento’s words (with the company from 1996 to 2014) area testimony of the reorganization that happened in the years 2000,due to the expansion that was happening in that period: “At thebeginning of new millennium markets in East Europe have grown, inparticular in Romania and Hungary: it was the beginning of the fol-lowing big opening in Russia, where, still today, Baxi’s brand is themarket leader. Baxi International was then born, wanted bySalvatore Basile, Managing Director at the time. The winning strat-egy? The quality of the Made in Italy and the courage to make amove also before every single move was planned”.

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Bassano were produced over 500 thousand boilers,50% of which was intended for the British and Turkishsubsidiaries. These two markets, in the last years, havegradually contracted: today the company produces 450thousand boilers, considering that in five years, thequantities required for this markers have decreased.Despite the crisis, and thanks to an intense analysis andexploration’s activity on the emerging markets, thebacklash was reabsorbed and a capillary presence hasbeen developed in over fifty markets.The importance of the orientation context, the ability oflistening to the market needs with the intent of orchestrat-ing design and production processes able to producesuitable answers, has been of fundamental importancefor the landing on the Russian and Chinese markets.Every country has its set of difficulties. First of all, oneneeds to identify and understand them, also becauseoften the information are fragmentary and from differentsources. Once the needs, the obligations and the critical-ity of the markets have been understood, it is of essen-tial importance to connect the whole with the design andproduction, to incorporate all of these information in the

Great celebration in 2006,on the occasion of the500 thousandth boilerproduced by the plant inVia Trozzetti (29.11.2006).

The production processes innovationAs Luigi Bianchin (with company since 1986) remembers in histestimony, the reaching of prefixed objectives in the domestic mar-ket and especially international ones was obtained through greatchanges, actualized also in productive processes, applying innova-tive concepts as the “Lean Production” method, which is based ona series of actions and principles aimed at reducing waste up to itselimination (Zero Defect). It is not just about cutting excessivecosts and operations at not-added value, but to totally rethink thecompany and guarantee the maximum production flexibility,having as focus the attention to the client.

Another concept introduced and applied in the plant is the“ergonomic” one. The ergonomic approach has as objective thework simplification, protecting the employees’ safety and health.To this end, work stations have been revisited, technical precau-tions have been created to reduce the difficulty of some types ofproduction, accessory elements have been realized to lift weightsand, thanks also to the R&D dpt., the Production dpt., many otherdepartments and the employees themselves, the utilization of someelements rather than others has been studied so as to make theproduct’s assembly easier.

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product, from its very first development. Afterward,every project deviation can become a problem for theproduction. To speed up the process and to make it asfluid as possible, Baxi’s design includes the productiondepartment from the very beginning. This integrationallows to be fast and to put your own abilities at the serviceof new clients. For example, when the company arrivedin China, it learned a lot, also in relation to the commer-cial structure of the Country. One of the main issues inthe Chinese market was represented by the several typesof gas: there were 50 types of city gas. For each sale’sarea, Baxi had to adjust its approach, giving particularattention to the type of nozzles used. The experience,matured over time, the Bassano’s plant dedication totrials and tests and an in depth analysis of the destinationmarket, allowed the company to design the rightproducts in very short times. In Russia, on the contrary,the problem comes from the very low temperatures. Inhomes, with functioning boilers, the external chambercan freeze in extreme weather situations. The companyhad to work on boilers that were able to operate at tem-peratures even close to minus 40 degrees. In particular,a problematic component was substituted utilizing theelectronics. Once an innovative solution was found, thecompany had to face the issue of the new solution’s cer-tification, convincing the certifying entity that the intro-duction of electronics would not impact the safety of theboiler. To execute the tests on site would have beenexcessively expensive: for this reason the companydeveloped an internal testing center that, today, has itsown certification, which ensures that tests executed inBassano can be approved by several international certi-fication entities. On one hand, then, the opening to international mar-kets, provides the company living matter to initiate

innovations that become a fast reality thanks to theability of reading context information and frame allelements able to influence the product functionality.The company internationalization, in other words, hasbeen a key engine for powering that particular innova-tive culture, based on the re-combination of solutionsand information agility that distinguishes Baxi. On theother hand, to establish a long lasting presence onthese markets, requires strong focus to the service andproduct dimensions. As Favero efficiently synthetizes:“The presence in fifty markets is not born by chance orluck. Imagine twenty years ago, when one began tothink at what the markets could be, categorizing themby climatic areas. We went on site, trying to under-stand who could represent Baxi, we looked for the firstcontact, the first trade shows. Today, I don’t keepcount anymore of the trade shows we participate to,but at that time it was crucial. After the trade shows,what happens? There are a myriad of tune-ups, recog-

The commercial prospects in Asia and RussiaAs Paolo Pesavento remembers in his testimony, the commercialprospect in Asia, where the Bassano’s company already sold bathtubsand electric water heaters, was in those years, interesting: “I found animporter in Beijing and we started to export our wall hung boilers toChina at the end of 1998!” In this statement one understands thegreat satisfaction in achieving the first sales in a market that had nocertainties due to the difficulty in comparing and understanding eachother, in presenting services offered in addition to products. It wasthe China of the great Boom. Hong Kong was still British.Giovanni Pilichi instead recounts how the leadership in Russia wasachieved. In the first years of penetration in the Russian market, thewall hung boiler was not known and standardized as a product inthe country. There did not exist defined regulations for the use andinstallation of such innovative products, both on a regional andnational level: “To be able to sell and install boilers, we had toimplement a remarkable promotional work by the local and nationalgovernment authorities, until we reached together the referencerules for the regulation of a safe installation”.

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Different types of Baxi’spresence in the wholeworld.1) Baxi’s booth at thetrade show Aqua-Thermin Moscow in 2013 withthe entire staff of theMoscow’s office.2) Baxi brand advertisedin large format at a clientin Russia.3) The Bridge Campaignrealized in the CzechRepublic starting in 2000.4) Baxi’s booth at thetrade show Aqua-ThermKiev in 2010.5) One of Baxi’s point ofsales present in Russia.6) Baxi presence also inChina, at the Beijing tradeshow (2014).

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nized, linked, smoothened with production, withphone calls, with service, the technical assistance. Theentire Baxi chain, very well organized, has been able toopen all these markets, and will continue to do so,thanks to the service, without prejudice that the productis a fundamental part. The attention to the service part,is clearly visible in the investment we have made inthe building dedicated to installers and partners’ train-ing here in Bassano”.

Baxi culture and identity: the glueAs a result of different passages of property, the com-pany has always been a melting pot of “ethnicgroups”: the Zanussi team, the old workers of the for-mer “Smalterie”, the employees of Zanussi of Rovigoand the new hires. In the years between the acquisitionby Zanussi and those of the leadership by Ocean, thecompany’s management has always put considerableefforts to integrate them under the banner of a shareand legitimized culture. It was not an easy task. Forexample, the Zanussi’s team were greeted initially witha certain degree of mistrust. However, during time, theintegration of the different souls (Zanussi and employeesof former “Smalterie”) and to develop for theBassano’s plant, a common identity and culture thatare still present today.The obstinacy, which I allowed myself to say in thebeginning, is the distinctive trait of Baxi that jumps tothe eye of an external observer. It is an obstinacy any-thing but senseless: it is strongly rooted in a culture andidentity which permeates the company and that islearned and internalized by anyone who comes into thecompany. It is an awareness of the strength’s points aris-ing from the long history of the business and by the sedi-mentation and combination of the different knowledge,

each taken from the different people that have charac-terized the life of this plant: the savoir faire and themanufacturing excellence of “Smalterie”, the managerialculture of Zanussi, the energy of Ocean, the rigor andprecision, the international orientation of Baxi and BDRThermea. To be aware of your own identity, to have astrong consciousness of your competencies and values,is what allows an organization the approaching of thenew - whether it is a product or a market - giving asense, a readability and a particular inflection. The group of managers I interviewed underlined severaltimes how this very strong culture has been the cata-lyst of Baxi’s potential and what has allowed the con-tinuity, despite adverse times, market uncertainty andabrupt changes of the global economic scenario.Anecdotes, as it often happens, help to understand indepth the essence of things. One anecdote impressedme in a particular way as it transmits the ability of themanagement team of collaborating on innovative projects

The importance of relationsBruno Zanon’s words (with the company for forty-three years,since 1958) are a convincing testimony of how relationsamongst people, whether they are occupied or employed indifferent roles, if they have as objective the common good,can build important results for the well-being, not just eco-nomic, of the people.In his memory, Bruno Zanon highlights the importance of rela-tions and fertile exchanges amongst various realities, the workand production improvement also through the introduction ofthe “ideas box”, a tool used to facilitate the communicationbetween employees and manage-ment. An opportunity that allowedthe important enhancement in thework posts, but especially toimprove the products’ quality, withimportant economic benefits forthose who cultivated the ideas,obtaining projects and results.

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to give a specific “identity” to their products and proj-ects, convincing even the skeptics. I am referring inparticular to the presentation of the Luna project toLuigi Nocivelli. To the proposal of the designing team to call the boilerthat name, in 1994, Nocivelli flared up. He was byvocation a technician and the name Luna had no tech-nical connotation. The design team, however, wascoherent in supporting the name. They adopted a strat-egy of effective presentation to persuade Nocivelli:they explained the reason for this name and theyreported to Nocivelli that there already had been anon-technical name’s success in the appliance sectorwith Margherita (Daisy) by Merloni. They told himthat a study was conducted and that the name’s choicedeliberately wanted to exploit “the synesthesia, thatsensory effect that makes you bring an object to a posi-tive image”. Nocivelli did not have the courage toreject the idea and, at the end, he embraced the proposal.The name was a success: a success for the design team,but especially for the company. In fact, when thecompany changed emblem to become Baxi, it did notencounter rebranding issues: the product, Luna, wasrecognize and recognizable much more than Baxi, andit was not necessary to spend significant resources in

advertising and communication. Baxi culture, then andnow, is the glue which makes sure that the manage-ment has responsibilities in its specific area, but that itis also competent and able to advise the co-workers inother areas. For example, the company was able toabsorb with any shock, the introduction of the Sametstove tops in their production. In the course of theyears, the different functions and people of the compa-ny have collaborated and integrated their competen-cies. If the particular vicissitudes experienced in the1970s and 1980s have perhaps facilitated the buildingof a culture and of an identity strong and shared, it isinteresting to understand how these are transmittedand communicated to the new recruits. Careers at Baxiunravel along mainly internal lines: the new genera-tion of executives and managers was placed side byside to the previous one. From it, it has learned not

Luna: a great shared projectAs it can be deduced by the words of Matteo Chenet (with the com-pany since 1990), the Luna project determined a very significantinvolvement from all parts of the company: for the project/productfine tuning there was a sharing amongst technicians, laboratory andproduction. The development of this new product determined a rela-tionships strengthening inside the company. Chenet remembers: “Itwas in that moment that the driving force of thinking, building rolesand investing in following generations expressed itself”.

The new Baxi managementAs Maurizio Tagliapietra remembers, the new and young manage-ment takes Baxi’s helm in Bassano confirming its consistency andproductive ability, opening it to new markets, guaranteeing abroader prospective. It is the winning philosophy that expressesitself in the ability of courageously innovate and, at the same time,if situations require it, tighten the belt. To be a company with a dif-fused management, brings certainly some challenges, but it canbecome a resource, it can allow a more rapid innovation when the“executive committee” that directs it demonstrate the ability tofully utilize the youth that characterize it.

Baxi’s human potentialIn the testimony of Silvia Bordignon (with the company since 1995)comes to light that the daily challenge for a company like Baxi, is that ofconciliate the business demands and the variability of the markets’ requestwith the productive needs and the employees’ welfare with the perspec-tive of appreciating the individual through the motivation and creation ofa company’s atmosphere of well-being that “engages” all employees.Constantly motivate individuals to innovate themselves, to convincethemselves of their own capacity and potentials, is of fundamental impor-tance as only with a staff motivated and involved in the growth andchange processes, it is possible to obtain an efficient organization.

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only the techniques and the operating modalities, butthe “Baxi’s method” of doing things, the specificobservation lens that needs to be utilized to tackle thedaily managerial choices, from the most critical andimportant ones to those seemingly less relevant.According to the managers I interviewed, the luck ofthe team that led the company from the Zanussi’s yearsto 2010 was that of starting together as young people.For this, one of the responsibilities more felt in thecompany is that of properly form, also making themresponsible, the new recruits.The human resources are selected, in the first place, onthe basis of character and predisposition. They arehelped and, as they learn, they receive higher delega-tion levels and more autonomy. The company tries toselect individuals that have a genuine desire to learn,giving them the assurance that they will grow inresponsibilities and perspectives. Neo-graduates arepreferred, because the company intends to activelycontribute to their training and it aims at forming thenew recruits in the culture of the company.

ConclusionsThe re-reading of the last thirty years of Baxi and itsmany transformations is far from simple. The companyhas apparently changed skin on a variety of occasionsand has experienced a series of ownership’s changesthat intuitively could have undermined its continuity. In

The most “precious” capitalIn Giovanni Baron’s testimony (with the company since 1991), FiomCgil Union representative, it is underlined which one is the most pre-cious “capital” in a company, that is the men and women that enrichand animate every day, with their work, with their strength and theideas courage, with intelligent hands, with the character and determi-nation that are theirs, with the limitations and the values they bring.

Toward the futureAlberto Favero (with the company since 1995) reminds us of thefuture company’s challenges. “To sail toward the future, one needs to make the dynamics his ownand be ready to set out and face also turbulent waters, if necessary.In 2015, beyond being our foundation anniversary, it will also be theyear in which the European legislation has imposed that new energyefficiency criteria must be adopted for products introduced in themarket. They are important challenges that will bring turmoil in oursector with repercussions to the strategic profile of the company: it isnecessary to interpret, grasp the trends but also to take risks. Theworld of heating from where we come will tend to merge toward theone of cold where, now from some time, we have taken our first stepsand seized the challenges. Agility, linked to flexibility, to the abilityand willingness of comparing yourself becomes always more essen-tial. The change of gear goes through, more and more, the demolitionof paradigms even inside our companies”.

reality, the attentive analysis of the most recent compa-ny’s history, efficiently testifies how all the actors thathave been at the helm of the company, have beenattracted to Bassano for the potential that today is BaxiSpA. With the Nocivelli’s arrival in Bassano and thesubsequent revival culminated with Baxi, the strengthpoints accumulated in the previous sixty years integratedwith the grafting of new skills have given life to a com-pany’s culture which has been able to express efficientstrategies. A resilient identity and culture and a clearawareness of its own means and its own abilities thathave enabled the company to look to the future to newproducts and new markets, giving value to a soul thatseems to be enclosed inside the walls of the Bassano’splant. The attention to the market and its needs, therapidity and agility in responding to these needs withnew products, the collaboration with suppliers andpartners, the ability of combining product and service,constitute an expertise that allows to look with confi-dence and ambition to the future.

Next page: Baxipresence in the world.

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An idea of Europe, built in the factory, yesterday atSmalteria Metallurgica Veneta, today at Baxi SpA,

in a city, Bassano, that has matured unique experiencesof relations, a natural international vocation. Maybebecause of its location in the North East, a territoryfavourably swept by a wind of innovation, at the mouthof a valley that leads the eye beyond the naturalboundaries, maybe because of the environmental fabric,the humus that generates desire for enterprise, the factremains that in this perspective, protected by the mas-sif of Grappa, the historical company of via Trozzetti,being 90-year old, is strongly launched towards its firstcentury of life. A bastion for the occupation. A forge ofideas for the design. A history made of many individualand collective stories, at times even tormented ones,that have shaped entire generations and that was and isunequivocally a reference point. A history capable of collecting life adventures, originaland unique, as it is described by the protagonists ofyesterday and of today, beyond the economic value thatman’s work induces and produces, beyond the sacri-fices that whoever enters the company’s gates manages

to do for himself and others, for the “project” that intel-ligent hands and fervent minds have been able to culti-vate and nurture, transforming them into useful andprecious products for mankind. Thousands and thousands of people, in ninety yearshave lived most part of their days within the walls ofthe factory, the eyes of entire families have been on thissource of work and support, entire generations havelistened, as if it was the beating of their hearts, therhythm of the production’s chains, have felt legitimizedthe dignity of their performance, interpreting withcourage and consistency their role, in the different tasksor occupations, living and breathing the air of“Smalterie” first, and of the various names then, afterthe great crisis of the 1970s, up to the current Baxi.Listening to them, the men and women of this compa-ny, we find a widespread sense of pride, of belonging,of strong dedication, of tranquil belief that the factoryis very intimately a big part of them. We retrace thesefeelings, these attitudes, listening to the protagonists,having them talking directly, hearing those remember-ing facts, episodes, anecdotes, feelings, impressions,

The cliché made of zinc,perforated in the center toinsert a set of movablecharacters, utilized for thestamp of an advertisementof Saeculum’s dishware.

Polyphonic memoriesThe company is told throughthe protagonists’ testimonies

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with the vibrant and emotional participation that thedispelling of the memory’s haze allows.It took just one meeting with today and yesterday’s pro-tagonists to hear bouncing dates and memories, torecover the joy of reviewing and rethinking of facesand intelligent hands that, in the course of time, havegenerously given vital energies in and for “their” facto-ry, never getting disappointed. It was the deep sign ofan attachment to an idea, even before an attachment toa brand, in the true and deep meaning of work, condi-tion of dignity and life, in the evolution of times, ofways and methods, with the awareness that the workerhas the strength and talent of using the material, thematerials to improve, in that search for equilibrium andharmony that motivates everyone’s life.Also, in those who had and have matured experiencesderived from a longer presence in the factory, there isthe recurring indication of how the company, in the lastfifteen/twenty years, has marked its most decisivetransformation. Men and means have made it a leaderin international markets, up-to-date and open to themost advanced needs, able to go, without hesitationwhere the demand and the new needs required its presence.Times and methods, resources and character of its workforce, of every order and degree, have determined andcontinue to offer, the success of this factory placed andinserted with full rights, in a Bassano’s tradition ofexcellence. The personal events of managers, workersand employees intersect meetings and reality, livedwith the awareness that to share a position, yesterday at“Smalterie” and today at Baxi, is a great experience anda definite adventure.The results achieved, in the dynamism and excitementof the succeeding economic seasons, are another vitalcomponent of this emblematic history.

A kaleidoscope of events, names, work-life episodesand more, able of forging a community, appear in alltheir facets, to the eyes and minds of those who seekthe signs of an evolution, to those who want to under-stand the purpose of a factory’s history.All those who have occupied and occupy a role, a posi-tion, from the warehouses to technical centers, toadministration and human resources, to “assemblylines”, become the components of a mixture that repre-sents man’s Wisdom, the celebration of human work,the transformation of a large dignity’s project.Technique and economy become complementary fac-tors, even in their essentiality, streams of intelligence,never the end of the common activity.In recalling, as management did with insistence inretracing days and developments of the current Baxi,days and decisions, comparisons and resolutionsassumed, a recalling has been constant: the individual’sresponsibility and the sharing of choices. Winningstrategy, given the results. A sign that, while projectingthe development in all possible directions, to follow thecardinal points of humanity has been of fundamentalimportance. Even when “drawers were opened”, inseveral passages of ownership over the decades, greatvalues in human relations have been recovered, in thedesire of renewing the products, never neglecting theacquired experiences. An invaluable continuity.Could the new company be called other than “Baxi”,since its systems originated always from the “FundusBaxianum”?Intelligence, foresight, courage, passion, are other wordsvalued, experienced, chosen and developed, always safe-guarding “the entity” of Bassano del Grappa. When executives speak of a past, base, pillar, to generatefuture, they recount, even today, that one must focus on

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productivity, which includes the agility, efficiency andservice to the market, innovation that goes from therealization of a product to the management of a system,to quality (“whatever we do in the near future, theimportant thing is how it will be done” has become thecommon thought).Another fundamental feature, in the passing of time, hasbeen the ability of this company to pass the baton, in dif-ferent roles too, but with the same awareness, fromfathers to sons, from mothers to daughters, amongst fami-ly members, with a spirit that has never been of a naturalsuccession but always of commitment to growth.Many collected interviews confirm this concept. A cou-ple, amongst many others, in the narratives of GiovanniTessarolo and his son Alain or in that of brothers Esetand Refki Mehmeti, originally from Kosovo, speakingof desires and aspirations, of welcome and availability,of a tolerant climate, of generous and strong sharing.Almost parallel stories in essence, lived in days andsituations definitely different.Giovanni Tessarolo becomes part of the factory in1969, soon after the “hot autumn”, he remembers. Hewill experience the closing of “Smalterie”, but he willbe amongst the first ones to return after the company’sgates reopening and he will mature, until December1996, great experiences and responsibilities in sectorsthat spanned from production lines to testing and qualitycontrol of the manufactured boilers.In 1990, his first real job, his son Alain becomes part ofthe company, when he was just 18-year old. The com-pany was growing and manpower was needed.Alain starts from zero. Hard days. The “old teachers”are strict, demanding, they ask and obtain, willing-ness and humility. A real apprenticeship school. “Tohave the job explained”, Alain Tessarolo remembers,

“was essential”. And, when a job was learned, thetransferring elsewhere came, another hard road,uphill, to be travelled. So, he worked in productionfor years, next to legendary figures like “Teo” and the“Kid, come here!”, which frequently was heard.There was the relief at lunch time, where there wassomething different to learn, because it was sharedwith his fathers and other co-workers. A happy“migration of communication, knowledge and com-petencies”. During those times, 180 boilers per yearwere produced. We have come a long way since then,when we reached a production of 500,000 boilers!Alain’s path in the company has been intense: fromthe production lines to the spare parts warehouse, totesting, then to what is today called “service depart-ment”. Now in marketing, he is living his “silverwedding anniversary” with the company. The dia-logue with the father continues even today. Thecuriosity of knowing the new “adventures” of thecompany is widespread amongst retired employees. Life at “Baxi” has changed in the years. Then you hadto reduce the production errors to a minimum, today thewaste margin is almost non-existent. The jump in quali-ty has been enormous. The technological evolution hashelped, the invested resources massive.

Of these working conditions, improved in the years, thetwo brothers from Kosovo speak as well. Arrived here atdifferent times, Eset Mehmeti as clandestine more thantwenty years ago, Refki Mehmeti recently. Eset remem-bers the human solidarity of the Bassano’s people: it wasin 1994 and many helped him inside and outside the fac-tory. “I was a foreigner - he says - but they offered metheir friendship. The hiring had given him tranquility andregular pay. Priceless qualities that he remembers

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Above, from left: theenamelling departmentin the 1930s.The economic gaskitchens’ assembly at thebeginning of the 1940s.

defending with other fellow countrymen he met periodi-cally. He does not forget that one million two hundredthousand lira he brought home the first time: a sign ofdignity. He tells of his experiences in the factory, thework in the “B Division”, of the production line co-workers, of his experience as technical operator, of howhe saw the company growing and changing, of the hiringof his brother in 2000. He speaks of a “Baxi mentality”,shared and appreciated also by Refki and other dozens offoreign workers, many non-European, who in their newadopting land were able to find that stability that offershorizons of tranquility for themselves and their families.

The following interview is really unique: we had theopportunity of getting to know and re-live the moments

of the first “Smalterie” through the narratives of PietroPiotto, born in 1919 (“But I was born on the last day ofthe year, the 31st of December”, he likes to highlight). He transmitted us, with freshness and enthusiasm, howthe working experience was lived at “Smalterie”, thesacrifices, the commitment and passion: literally aflooding river of memories, testimonies and anecdotes.He joined “Smalterie” at the end of summer in 1938, aftera training course at the “Scuola di Arti e Mestieri”(School of Arts and Trades) in Via Piave, on suggestionand presentation of the then Director Costa, that hadgiven him a… recommendation: “You need to work, tobring home a contribution, accept any employment theyoffer you. I will present you to the executives ofSmalterie”. And so it came to pass, the call, the employ-

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ment as “fumista” (oven operator), eight hours of work,eight hours off, then eight more, to achieve the fortyweekly hours in few days and have more time for otheroccupations. This was the spirit with which people handledwork. Additionally, to complete the schedule, there wasthe possibility of “filing the tips”, of adding experience,of doing useful works to facilitate the production.“Smalterie” was “secure pay and indoor job!” An ambi-tious goal, a security. A few more months and the militaryservice would have come, then the war, dramatic yearsarrived, amongst the Alpini (Italian Alpine Soldiers). Thefrontline of Montenegro, the one in France, the imprison-ment, two endless years of confinement in Kassel,Germany, until the Liberation by the Americans. The for-tunate return home on the 5th of August 1945 (at home, on

the table, an empty plate, reassembled on the pieces, kepttogether by three “grappe”), the bitter surprise: to thefathers of the young employees of “Smalterie” who hadleft as soldiers, that did not have a stable job, employmentin the factory was guaranteed. But this did not happen forthe Pietro Piotto’s father and he says “to think that myfather had worked at “Smalterie” twenty years earlier”.He remembers, in fact, when as an adolescent he and hisbrother, from Santa Croce, where his family lived, wouldbring lunch every day for his father, in a terra-cotta bowl,during noon break, and they would eat it together, sitting,when they could, on the edge of the nearby railway road,in front of the “Magazzino Petroli” (Petroli’s Warehouse),near the quarry from which the gravel necessary for theenamelling work was extracted. Still tormented memories

The large foundry of“Smalterie” between1940 and 1950.

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The evolution of thecompany’s technicalOffice: from the twodraughts men of 1950to the organized structureof the following decade.

when, around September/October 1945, Pietro tries to getback in the company, where “many, wearing a differentshirt” had found their job reconfirmed, even if“Smalterie” then, did not have either orders or raw mate-rials to work anymore. The tough negotiations, conductedalso on behalf of the hundreds of confined and veterans,who had come back from the frontline, to contend for anemployment place in the company, up to mobilize eventhe Carabinieri (Italian Police), managing a meetingbetween the city administration and the company’sexecutives and negotiating the “shares” even with thepartigiani (partisans), managed to have a first portionhired, about seventy workers. With the re-hiring thatfinally arrives for him too, comes a position in the work-shop, in “Department 49”, controlling clocks, timers andtime clocks, which needed to be constantly adjusted, thetraining courses (at Boselli in Milan, for which he self-financed himself) to maintain constant the updating ofmany precision equipment. Piotto does not forget theuneasy relations with the direct superiors, his commit-

ment in the social, in the association sector. Another thir-ty years in the company of Via Trozzetti, living all thevicissitudes of “Smalterie” during the Boom years, untilthe end of his experience in the company. The last timecard, signed at 12 a.m. on June 30th 1975: “Exactly at thattime because I had to guarantee that the time clocks’ tapewas turned over!”. And exactly these precision instru-ments would have been his adventure’s companions,even at the time of retirement, in the starting of a newactivity that has seen him handle new relations with evenmore than eight hundred different businesses. Anotherexperience born and matured at “Smalterie” and thentransferred to the benefit of the Bassano’s territory.

Silvio Pianaro arrived at “Smalterie” in 1967 andremained until 2001, after some working experiencesthat brought him also to Switzerland. His testimonyspeaks of a hiring proposal in the technical office of“Smalterie” that takes him back to Bassano and opensfor him a good life and work perspectives, leaving him

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time to cultivate his great passion for soccer, a passionthat he continues to practice and nurture (he remainsamongst the promoters of competitive, amateur andcompany’s tournaments, with challenges betweendepartments, intercompany in the city and in theBassano’s territory). He soon becomes responsible forthe “workshop”, the pulsing heart of the company, inclose connection with the “mind”, the technical anddesign office. Always available, including Saturdayand Sunday, to avoid the interruption of the productioncycle. Pianaro speaks with enthusiasm about his co-workers, generous and trusted men, “masters” of work,like Bepi Bonotto, “his” trainer, in soccer too, andLuigi Pallaro. The “workshop” was the school of life as“Smalterie” was the “factory” which gave time to allpeople who wanted it, to grow, to be valued, knowl-edgeable, to become that “human resource” whichallows the person to love the job, to stay connectedwith colleagues. Pianaro remembers: “Time was givento “calibrate” desires and preparation, to allow the

employment at its best, to be placed in the right posi-tion and find exactly the proper appreciation”.

Let us now take a look at what emerges from the Unionside. Eloquent and significant are the memories ofBruno Zanon, trade unionist for Fim Cisl, who becamepart of the company in 1958 (and will remain for 43years) in the workshop. “Smalterie” were, naturally, his“home”: both father and mother were employed in thecompany, the factory just a few steps from his home (atleast until his wedding), he has literally “breathed” thecompany’s air of Via Trozzetti. Zanon repeatedlyunderlines the “values” of “Smalterie”, the great senseof belonging, the pride of being employed by this com-pany, the great friendship, the strong sense of solidari-ty and the desire to live together (even after work in thefour osterie - taverns - and locande - inns - of the area,playing cards, bocce and dancing), which has generateda bond amongst all the workers, regardless of theideologies, colors and political beliefs.

From left to right: thepainting of the radiatorsfor transformers(1950s-1960s).The enamelling ofbathtubs in 1960.

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Thanks also to the strong unionization of the workers atSmalteria Metallurgica Veneta, many important con-quers have been achieved - like the half hour lunchbreak - ten years before Fiat. Bruno Zanon is one of thehistorical memories of the company, of which he livedthe Boom and the crisis years, the recovery and launch-ing, always as a protagonist and interpreter of his co-workers needs. And it was during the recovery time, heremembers, that in reorganizing the personal employees’lockers he made a discovery that still touches him. Hefinds amongst the personal effects left in a corner, a“holy picture” of his father, right amongst the papers ofa fellow worker that he believed was an opponent forthe different political ideas: they were divided by ideolo-gies, united by a great mutual respect conquered atwork, and a strong friendship. It is all a flow of names,memories, vibrant encounters and clashes with the newand different corporate staff, with the sole objective ofgiving back to the company and its employees, strengthand dignity. What Zanon recounted remains a convincingtestimony of how relations amongst men, occupied oremployed in different roles, if they have as objectivethe common good, they are able to build importantresults for the well-being, not just economic, of people.Another fascinating story, personal and collective, is foundin the words of Pietro Ennati, who came into SmalteriaMetallurgica Veneta in 1964 as an electrician and remainedwith the company until the beginning of 1995.

His passion and responsibility for the Union (he was anactivist with determination and commitment in FimCisl) involved him right away, so, once gained thedeserved trust, he became the co-workers representa-tive already in 1966. In his memories there are manycompany and Union battles, a constant commitment to

indicate needs, to claim rights, to compare himself forthe enhancement of human resources.It is important for Ennati to emphasize the classifica-tion with which the employees were considered by thevarious leaderships, who worked on the production lineand was responsible for the production demands andwho had different tasks, but also the shared commit-ment to keep all employees united, to avoid people los-ing their job and guarantee a respectable present and adignified future for all workers.

One of the executive group’s voices is that of MaurizioTagliapietra, Master Degree in Economics at Ca’Foscari, member of the Board of Directors of Baxi SpA,who came to the company in 1988 as ManagementControl System Supervisor, after experiences in theMarzotto Group. He immediately committed himself togive a substantial contribution to the company’s com-puterization. “In six months, he remembers, we put thesystem back in order and drafted the income statement.It was sufficient to have the first personal computerscome into the company, with the appropriate softwarepackage and the relations’ system changed”.Today, Tagliapietra is the Finance Director at Baxi.1998 was the first year in which the new company wasable to put the accounts back in order and to close witha positive balance, generating the first gain. Over time,starting from 1995, what had been only the “HeatDivision” conquered its autonomous budget in the group. Of fundamental importance was the year 1999, with theacquisition by the Anglo-Saxon group Baxi. They areyears of transformation, of the overcoming of difficulttimes for the company, of redevelopment, in a newdimension that brings us, in 2009, to a new structure. Inthe last years of the last decade, with Salvatore Basile,

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G. Mario Taglia and Tonino Vettori leaving, new compe-tencies formed and were growing, which, as Basile wroteexiting his role on February 19th 2009, did “fight withgenerosity and determination for the well-being of thecompany”. The experience of the Baxi reality is evenmore enriching because it is a diffused management com-pany, which allows for a more rapid innovation when thegroup of executives that leads it, demonstrates the abilityof fully exploiting the youth that distinguishes it.

Giovanni Pilichi, after a Degree in BusinessEconomics, joined Baxi in 1996 as Export AreaManager. After other work experiences, he re-enters thecompany as Export Sales Director and currently holdsthe position of MD International - BDR Thermea. In histestimony, he describes what were the drivers thatdetermined the internationalization of Baxi and thedevelopment of the Export area, such as speed in enter-ing emerging markets due to the gasification develop-ment; the trade policy based on long term partnershipresearch, which has brought to the acquisition of manypartners (Turkey, Czech Republic, Joint Venture with

Argentina); the ability of being a flexible company, fastand reactive and the belonging to a multinationalGroup. Belonging to this Group, has allowed access tothe necessary major investments to maintain the com-petitive established leadership and in particular theaccess to industrial product platforms and to stronginvestments in innovation, research and development,which have been key success factors also in foreignmarkets, allowing to always propose cutting-edge heat-ing solutions, preserving profitability. “We can defi-nitely affirm that the Baxi brand has become a leader inthe international scene, especially thanks to theBassano’s company system which is strongly interna-tionalized, true strong competitive point, recognizedboth by Baxi Group and BDR Thermea, that have madeit the strategic base for the international activity of theentire group”, remembers Pilichi in his testimony. “Also - Pilichi continues - one of the markets that hasprovided the greatest satisfaction to Baxi in recentyears, is Russia, where we have not only conquered asignificant share in the market of wall hung boilers(today Baxi is the market leader) but also to have con-

Baxi’s advertisement inRussia in 2007 and 2008:from wall posters todynamic advertisement onpublic transportation.

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Baxi has consolidatedhis leader position inthe Russian market:the Baxi’s bannersincrease in the territory.

tributed in a substantial way to the creation of the mar-ket and of the demand, by interacting with the govern-ment authorities to define regulations that, at the time,did not even exist.

Another management’s voice is that of Matteo Chenet,Mechanic Engineer and Italy Sales Director. Heexpresses all its satisfaction in dealing with this market.Entered in the company in 1990 to prepare a graduationthesis relative to the study of a plates’ production line pro-gramming, he soon understands to have a commercialsoul. The company offers him a technical and commer-cial responsibility. “It was a downright company invest-ment - he admits - to aim at the service to the customer.Our assistance and technical support to the commercialdirection, brought immediate results, from the pre-sale topost-sale. Today we focus more and more on having our

customers getting to know our reality, bringing them toour company. The people who had the opportunity ofvisiting our plant, are surprised when they walk aroundthe different departments. Here they find the strength ofa large plant, equipped with great added value”.“It is to the park installed 10-15 years ago (approaching itsreplacement) that we focus our attention to, to that segmentthat has chosen to rely on our product with the guaranteeof its own comfort and that wants to find it again in a newBaxi product. Another development opportunity is the highoutput market, that of large commercial and industrial instal-lations, relatively new for us as we entered it six years ago”.“This is the DNA of our company: innovation, techno-logical evolution, ability to seize all opportunities com-ing from the market. We have been talking about“hybrid systems”, in close collaboration with market-ing, for over five years (and today we are followed inthis by all our competitors), we are well prepared forthe battle in the market, we are ready for new chal-lenges. We have another excellence at Baxi - concludesChenet - which consists of the people, from the manage-ment team to the workers, an extraordinary resource,that makes the difference”.

The vision of Baxi, collected from some of the historiccustomers of the Bassano’s company appears interesting. Elio Bastoni, owner of the Sogecom Agency, dealer forthe Emilia Romagna and Marche regions, worked firstas an agent for Zanussi, then for Ocean, developing theheating markets, endorsing more and more the Italianbrands. The refinement of the offered products allowedthe overtaking of the French and German offers, over-coming them in the price/quality ratio, offering prod-ucts with a price of great balance. Surely, one of bestcards, the winning one, is the maintenance simplicity

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and having being able to contain costs and inconveniencesfor the installer and the final user as well. “We had feared - Bastoni says - the passage from Oceanto Baxi. We were confronted by more structure andgreater statue. It was challenging to have the new brandknown and recognized, but the product facilitated thetask. The future now engages us in other challenges,energy upgrading, updating the obsolete products, com-patibility between consumption and resources. Ofcourse the crisis is looming, we have reduced the volumes,but the products we offer are innovative, avant-garde,a guarantee, they have anticipated the times and theregulations”. If it is possible to make a wish to the Baxi

The Baxi’s brandedhybrid system, pioneeringcombination in thisparticular segment.

Sogecom’s awardceremony as best sellingAgency in the year 1999.

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of the 2000s Elio Bastoni adds: “That it continues togive us a very high content of service products, distin-guished by simplicity and ease of use, easy to read.Simply put, always the best product!”.

Tancredi Casalecchi, awarded with the “Cacciavited’oro” (Golden Screwdriver) from Zanussi, where hewas an appreciated technician before moving to thesales area and take on, on his own, the Agency forMilan and Lombardy, led until December 2014 his owncompany with about ten employees. Of the Baxi’sproducts, he appreciates their solidity, the reliability,the fact that, once produced, they have very littleissues, the durability and the few spare parts necessaryfor their maintenance. “Our attention must increasingly turn also to the com-plex systems so as not to risk to lose important dimen-sions or leave room to the competitors. It is necessaryto communicate the brand more and more, to let themarket know what the company can offer to the customer,what it does well. Not everyone knows, for example,that the heat exchanger in a Baxi boiler can be changedin less than a minute. This information gives value toour brand too”.

Significant is also the recounting of another executive,Luigi Bianchin, who was hired in 1986 with the firsttraining contracts of the then Ocean Idroclima. Twentyeight years later he is the Manufacturing Director of theBaxi SpA plant. His staff includes more than 400 peo-ple, covering different areas of the productive process:the departments of operations, quality and maintenanceworkshop and especially, of production. “When I cameto at the then Ocean Idroclima, I was fascinated by theopportunity of working in a company so rich in history.

Already at that time, there was a perception of innova-tive vision, a company with a deep organization and,for a young graduate like me, it was a strong attrac-tion’. “My adventure started in the Time and Motiondepartment, where I gained a strong experience in theproduction area thanks also to the teachings of my firstmanager, Danilo Gai, sadly recently passed away. Hisstyle in having his staff work, making everyoneinvolved in the issues that we encountered every day,has allowed me to gain an enormous amount of experi-ence. Danilo used to tell me “Learn as much as possi-ble, keep it as a treasure and put it aside. You will seethat, sooner or later, it will come useful at work or inlife”. The year of the strong productive change is2005, when the company decides to reorganize theproduction, based on a large production system oflarge batches to embrace the Lean Productionmethod. ”They were years of radical changes: we lit-erally turned the company around and redesigned theproduction lines, with the goal of reducing the non-created added value and ensure the maximum flexi-bility in production. In terms of costs and invest-ments, Baxi had to make great efforts, but thisallowed the company to remain a leader in Europe,even during an extremely difficult economicmoment, like the current one, so that the projects ofimprovement do not stop even now, and, this year,the installation of a new production line is forecasted,the 14th one, which will give life to a new product.Lean production, ergonomics, zero defects, are proj-ects that allowed us to understand that you cannotreach a Lean production, without defects, if this isnot supported by a continuous improvement process.Above all, the improvement does not exist withoutthe involvement of people”.

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Paolo Pesavento, Degree in Business Economics atCa’ Foscari in 1995, Marketing Director until 2014,entered Ocean at the beginning of 1996 and for aboutsix months is part of the staff of Sales ManagementItaly to promote the Ocean brand at events and at thedistribution’s points of sale. In September of thesame year, he was offered an interesting opportunity,that of following the Export Department. The com-pany was booming. “I moved to the ExportDepartment, to follow countries with difficulties inculture and vocation (East Europe, Middle East andFar East) - remembers Pesavento. It was a significantexperience. During those years I learned a lot, notonly from my colleagues but also from my cus-tomers”. The export team has always had this char-acteristic. “We were pioneers; from small occasions,with a market analysis done on site, to great oppor-tunities. A form of commercial entrepreneurship”.Bringing a Bassano’s company to the global worldis, after all, a challenge. The technical entrepreneur-ship is made of this opportunities. The technicalentrepreneurship of our area, combined with thedesire for pioneering, is an Italian northeast trait. In2004, other strategies, new challenges, other vision

on markets and important changes inside the compa-ny took place. Basile decides to put hand on theorganization, with the collaboration of theCommercial Directors, he created synergies betweenthe Export and Domestic departments. Pesaventogoes from being marketing client, as commercial, tobecome responsible for it in first person. A trans-verse team is created and the synergic project isdeveloped across multiple experiences, toward a sin-gle marketing: “I consider myself a market manager.We are, after all, sowers, soil preparers, others water it.Market researches, analysis, interviews with customers,creativity to achieve the development of an ideawhich becomes an operative project. The new heat-ing technologies, condensing boilers and highpower, solar energy, heating hybrid boiler-pump sys-tems constitute our future. Technologies on whichwe need to invest. “To evaluate the results, I wouldlike to mention the efforts we did and the recognitionwe have had in the last ten years, in knowing how tooffer the Baxi brand in Italy and abroad in a modernway, appreciated for the product’s quality and thepeople. Our competitors themselves recognize ourinnovation steps in products and services, which

From left to right: theaward ceremony of theTancredi Casalecchi’sAgency (1997).Group picture at thefirst Baxi Expo event(Bologna, 2013).The new format, designedby the company allowedthe company to meetover 10,000 sector’sprofessionals.

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From left to right:the radiators assemblyline in 1960.Column radiators’elements (1962).

have amazed and continue to amaze. They are,beyond obviously our customers, the neutral and unbi-ased judges of the quality and integrity of our work”.Let us go back to the experience of a worker’s repre-sentative, Giovanni Baron, hired at Ocean in 1991 aslaborer in the plates department, in charge of theassembly work, then supervisor at the varnishingovens, dust exsiccation and then always employed inthe plates sector until the department closing in the late1990s, when he transferred to the wall hung boilers andkits pre-assembly. Union delegate first for the plates department, then inthe RSU, in the Factory’s Board from 1994, he has, stilltoday, the role of workers’ representative and is part ofthe province and regional board of Fiom Cgil. “In thelast two most recent internal contracts - Baron remem-bers - we constituted the figure of the social delegate,with the task of communicating with the workers andactivate an informative assistance service for who hasfamily problems, to give life to a sort of food bank, to

start small but significant social initiatives, in collabo-ration with the company, always ready to support whenwe launch special collections. The social care hasbecome a constant commitment, both inside and out-side the factory’s walls”.“In these 25 years of presence in the company - Baronsays - Union relations have positively evolved. Wehave to deal with management, we have in front of uspeople who really care about the factory. We live rela-tions that can be, at times, tense but in sharing a com-mon design, to continue to sail the ship and keep itaway from the shallow waters. I would like to say,though, that the respect between us has neverdecreased”. “Here we live well together. Seasonalworkers do not want to leave and there are even thosethat wait for several months to be called back”. Wecannot even complain about our production bonus:that of Baxi, in fact, has been compared to the bonus-es that were achieved at Ferrari or even in Germany,where the earnings are higher than ours”.

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Silvia Bordignon, a woman at the head of HumanResources. She is the first female manager in the longhistory of this company.A graduate in Political Science, she came to Ocean in1995, even before presenting her thesis. When shewas hired, she had in her pocket a one-way ticket tothe United States, but the job offer in “her” Bassanomade her change her mind and the adventure in ViaTrozzetti started. Employed immediately in the Human Resources Office,she has handled recruitment, organization and manage-ment of relations with Trade Unions, growing graduallyin managerial responsibilities and competencies. She came to Personnel Management recently andtoday, she leads the Baxi human resources formed bytwo-thirds of men and one third of women, with aworkforce that varies between 730 and 860 employeesdepending on the season. The employee’s average ageis 44 years with a working seniority of 15 years. The appointing of Bordignon, has given confidence to

a female leadership definitely capable of opening newgender horizons. “For me, today - clarifies Silvia Bordignon - the greatocean liner, as Baxi was called some time ago, mustlearn how to surf like a sail boat that passes throughinternational waters, maneuvering with flexibility andprofessionalism, guided by a shrewd and harmoniouscrew. The cultural background and the acquired tech-nical competency must be put to the service of themarket, without asking ourselves too many questionson “what we were good at”, but rather on “what wecan do to grow and improve”. To join the individualneeds of hundreds and hundreds of employees withthe demands of competition, flexibility and innova-tion is not an easy task. But having assigned the man-agement of human resources to a woman is certainlyan important signal for the Baxi’s family. Finally, the opinion of the man called, after variouslong experiences, to coordinate and direct the largefamily of Baxi in Bassano: Alberto Favero, Vice

Two special moments inthe company: the activity“Costruisci la tua caldaia”(build your own boiler),linked to Baxi ExpoBassano (September 2014)and “Green to work day”(June 2014), initiativeaimed to awake employeeson eco-friendly mobility.

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Company convention“Melodie d’insieme”(January 2011).

President and Managing Director of Baxi SpA, beganhis journey in the Via Trozzetti’s company when thebrand and ownership were Ocean-Nocivelli in 1995.A graduate in Mechanical Engineering, his firstappointment was as responsible for the Operations ofall that world, which starting from the product con-cept, has to bring it available to the market. Then theresponsibility of overseeing all the investments andthe production organization. Production, logistics,offices and, at the beginning, purchasing. WhenOcean become Baxi and joined a British financialGroup, whose property were investment funds, thehorizons change for Favero as well. “We were in themid-2000 - he remembers - when they asked me totake care of an aggregation, of a Spanish companydivision, Roca, a brand that in the Iberian land cameeven before the Coca Cola one. I accepted and I wascalled to be part of an international team of integra-tion, which had to take care of organizational aspects,logistics, of synergy. I stayed with the colleagues fora year. In 2006, I was offered to oversee the activity

of logistics, production and implementation at thegroup’s level. An occupation that lasts until 2010,with the objective of encouraging the integrationbetween different companies, of creating referencestandards for costs, define indicators to make inter-pretable and comparable the different companies’performances. And, again, costs control, inter-changes, study and development of the dynamicslinked to the various markets”. “We were an interna-tional team, prevalently British and we were a refer-ence point for companies located in England,Germany, France, Italy and Turkey. In 2009 a furthercorporate evolution: the Baxi Group merged with theDe Dietrich and Remeha’s corporations, giving birthto BDR Thermea, ranking as the 4th European Groupin the sector, with a sales volume of 1,7 billion eurosand strengthening its presence in several Europeanmarkets. After Vettori resigned, at the end of 2010, Icame back to Bassano as Managing Director andVice President of the Baxi’s Board of Directors”.“Certainly, the international experience - continuesFavero - must be experienced. It was invaluable, Iwould say crucial for my vocational training. With allthe concerns and reservations that it induces and pro-duces. I remember the first concerns when I was inSpain, but it enriches you in terms of measuring, ofexperiences, of ideas. To put ideas in motion is cru-cial. It takes away as slag our encrustations, it forcesyou to confront with others, to appreciate stories andmatured experiences, different methodologies. It isan experience to be encouraged: in our company, weinsist for other people to leave the factory, even if forshort periods, to face other realities, to face the com-parison to return with wider visions. In England thesecomparisons are particularly developed. I found them

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precious”. Favero recalls and emphasizes the differentdynamics, the cultural and economic assessmentsaccrued in these exchanges, which produced, some-times, confrontations: you always need to keep theminto account. Undoubtedly a useful experience, anoverall vision that was helpful to understand what thedemands could be, the visions, the strategies of onegroup, to develop individualities able to relate to ateam. It is obvious that in each reality, each societytries to defend its hinterland, its local interests, alsofrom an historical point of view. “We must, though, learn to take into account thegroup’s interests, put on the scale the different needs -Favero notes. It is not a simple thing: every day youmust arbitrate, encourage to look forward, but thinkand take decisions that must be addressed from differ-ent angles”. How was the situation of Baxi in Bassano before yourdeparture for Spain and then England, and how did youfind it at your return?“It is not possible to make direct comparisons. Themacro-economic framework, the quality and frequencyof trade have changed; there has been and there is avibrant dynamic that compresses more and more thereaction times. To take pictures of the company withoutconsidering that the frames are not the same anymore,could provide a non-objective vision”. I can say - adds the Managing Director - that here Ihave found an always dynamic situation, capable ofgreat flexibility. I found a company that needed andstill needs to change skin. In terms of industrial pro-file, it has taught and created a lot and it has been areference point on a national level, starting from thecontractual aspects where it led the way. The compa-ny is known for its industrial profile, for the product

innovation and also for the ability of knowing how tointeract with great agility and synchronism undereach profile, technical, productive and service: thisneeds to be acknowledged, thanks also to a construc-tive relationship with the Unions, past and present.We know how to make good, reliable products, wehave creative ability. But it is not enough: we mustinteract more and more with the end user, continuingto synergistically work with the distribution. Ours isa rather long chain: the distributor, the installer, theend user. We should shorten the communication towardthe installers and the end users as well, essentialdetail to have us recognized and to know the marketbetter. Here we can and must work on, to understandas soon as possible the market trends. The need cangenerate trend. In a world that speeded up thedemands, we have to capture with greater immediacythe needs, and for this reason we need to be able toget closer to the customer with all the instrumentsmade available from technology.Furthermore, we need to make sure that the interac-

Maurizio Sacconi, Ministerof Labour and Welfarevisiting Baxi in 2011,welcomed by the ManagingDirector Alberto Faveroand by the Mayor ofBassano, Stefano Cimatti.

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The new Training CenterBaxi L@B (2015).

tion is adequate on the professional and relationalprofile, and for this we need to continually invest inthe preparation involving our staff, our agents, theafter-sale service centers that represent us, theinstallers. The new location, totally dedicated to thetraining, the Training Center Baxi L@B, recentlyinaugurated, is composed by eight classrooms, com-pletely dedicated where the teaching staff, selectedand adequately trained, will provide technical, leg-islative and administrative information to all thetechnicians and sector specialists coming from allover the world. We are sure that thanks to this impor-tant investment of resources and structures, and con-tinuing on the product and service we can reach otherheights both in the Italian and foreign markets.Nowadays the market is quite different than a decadeago, when it was focused mainly on contracts. With the re-organization of the new buildings, the

world of replacement has taken over. Now we are set-ting a change of route. It is not a simple thing. Wetend sometimes to remain linked to the past, to ourhabits, to the markets that have given great satisfac-tion. The strength point is the many loyal people,extremely involved in what they do, in what theyspend their time with, passionate people and aware ofthe many goals achieved. Surely they created history,but this awareness cannot prevent to dare, to getinvolved: sometimes history should be forgotten andit is necessary to find the courage to embark on newroads. People determine the success of a company,before even the investments, whether they are theworker, the employee or the executive. This is thestrength of a company, of our action”. Finally the bond with the territory: for Favero it canbe an advantage, but not always. “With us collaborate- he says - many small and medium-size companies.

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Thanks for the testimonies of

Giovanni Baronin the company from 1991, Trade Unionist Fiom CgilLuigi Bianchinin the company since 1986, now Manufacturing DirectorSilvia Bordignonin the company since 1995, now Human Resources DirectorGabriele Ceccatocompany’s attorney since the end of 1980, member of Baxi Board of DirectorsAnnamaria Cecconin the company from 1994 to 2011,General Services/Human Resources Manager Matteo Chenetin the company since 1990, now Italy Sales DirectorPietro Ennatiin the company from 1964 to 1995, electricianAlberto Faveroin the company since 1995, now Managing Directorand Vice-President of Board of DirectorsEset Mehmetiin the company since 1994, department “B”, technical operatorRefki Mehmetiin the company since 2000

They are a reality mirror too. They own an innovationinstinct, continuous research. Adaptation capacity. Inour “Triveneto” (North-east of Italy) there are stillmany pioneers, even if time has changed for every-body and the most virtuous are those who lookedbeyond the borders of their territory and of their histo-ry. Together with them, I believe, we can look to thefuture, with the hope of being able to celebrate the100th Anniversary that this company will soon see. Ibelieve that in a world where work and market condi-tions have changed, many are the factors that comeinto play. We must learn to go toward the future. Weare working more and more on services. All thismeans to change skin”.

Vasco Nicolettiin the company since 1989, now Personnel Administration ManagerFabio Pegoraroin the company since 1995, now at Quality Control departmentPaolo Pesaventoin the company from 1996 to 2014, Marketing DirectorSilvio Pianaroin the company from 1967 to 2001, Workshop ManagerGiovanni Pilichithe company from 1996 to 1999, returned in 2004,now MD International BDR ThermeaPietro Piottoin the company from 1938 to 1975, oven operator,workshop, “Department 49”Maurizio Tagliapietrain the company since 1988, now Finance DirectorAlain Tessarolo in the company since 1990, now Product ManagerGiovanni Tessarolo in the company from 1969 to 1996, production, testing, quality controlBruno Zanonin the company from 1958 for 43 years, workshop,Trade Unionist Fim Cisl

A room in the TrainingCenter, equipped withavant-garde equipment.

A journey through time, amongst many peopleAlberto Favero

A company able to evolve and compete worldwideGiuliano Poletti

The mettle that makes the differenceGiuseppe Zigliotto

Pride in our teamRiccardo Poletto

The Lion, the Eagle, the BrentaBassano in the mirror of historyGiovanni Battista Sandonà

Work University and Business SchoolWith “Smalterie” the industrialdevelopment of an entire district beginsAndrea Minchio

The corporate evolution in the last thirty yearsA winning growth, based on diffused managementand internationalizationVladi Finotto

Polyphonic memoriesThe company is told through the protagonists’ testimoniesGiandomenico Cortese

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Contents

from Bassano to the world1925-2015

Ninety years of insights and creationsachieved by successful synergies

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