Many-sided personality, Commendatore Giovanni Casagrande embodied entrepreneurial talent, passion for sport and love of culture, qualities that he handed on to Sacile, his city “of adoption”.
From the early years after the Second World War, Commendatore Casagrande Giovanni distinguished himself for his strong entrepreneurial ability. In the season of growth and economic consolidation of his industrial group, in order to give the youth the opportunity to practice healthy activities in their free time, he sponsored painting exhibitions, cultural circles and, in particular, he was also an important patron of sports world in Sacile, he founded and was a member of the great “Jazz-Symphony Orchestra Casagrande”.
Giovanni Casagrande (Refrontolo, 26 October 1916 – Sacile, 22 October 1991), after having spent his early years in the Police Corps serving in various places – among which Rome, where he had the opportunity to play in the Royal Band, and later Milan and Saint Candido, where he worked as a police dogs instructor -, began his entrepreneurial activity in Sacile at the beginning of the second postwar period, producing on his own patent the “Vetrobril”, a device for the fast cleaning of glass and crystals that soon had a great sales success in Italy and abroad, especially in Australia. At the same time, he manufactured and marketed a universal wrench for gas cylinders, which was also produced on his own patent. And that is not all: in 1949 he started the complete production cycle of a hot air generator. In 1950 he also began to work in the school furniture sector, making large supplies on behalf of various municipalities, including Milan. In 1956 he extended the production to mass production furniture for kitchens, living rooms, offices, etc.
Starting with the support of only two apprentices, at the dawn of the 1960s Giovanni Casagrande could count on a team of over one hundred and sixty workers and ten commercial agents, linked to a network of eight hundred wholesalers; to stand up to the ever-expanding numbers, the company was moved to Cornadella, in a factory designed by the architect Natalino Borsetti.
The progress and success achieved between the 1960s and 1970s were highlighted in the edition from 1969 of the volume “EUROPEAN AWARD MERCURIO D’ORO – Oscar del Commercio Europeo” (EUROPEAN AWARD GOLDEN MERCURY – Oscar of European Trade), where the presence of the products in the foreign market (in particular Belgian, Dutch and German) is underlined and it is pointed out the extension of the commercial apparatus which had a fleet of twenty-five lorries with trailer and other forty vehicles, nine sorting storehouses in Italy and five abroad, while, with regard to the organization of sales, the company could count on more than fifty figures including representatives, sales assistants and inspectors.
Commendatore Casagrande, in the 1970s, could be said to have been also a precursor in the field of the so-called km 0 in catering. Leaving the inhabited area of Cornadella, driving along the state road towards Conegliano, it still seems to see the large wooden façade of the Restaurant Holiday Farm Casagrande, active for some years near the river Meschio, stocked with wines, vegetables, sausages of the Farm Casagrande, to which it belonged.
Casagrande was not only an entrepreneur, but also a patron of the arts: under his patronage exhibitions of paintings, cultural clubs and sports competitions were organized. His name is linked to the Great Jazz-Symphonic Orchestra Casagrande (he himself was a saxophonist), which made its debut on August 19, 1967.
For him, it was essential to ensure that young people had the opportunity to fill in their free time in a healthy way. For this reason, he financially supported several sports clubs of Sacile and beyond, just think of the Casagrande U.S. Cycling Group, the Casagrande U.S. Women’s Volleyball Sports Group (it earned third place in the “A” series championship of the season 1970/1971) and the Casagrande U.S. Football Sports Group.
