A Few Words from Frank Mariani: Sustaining a Healthy Environment for Our Employees
Dear Clients and Friends,
It’s been a few tough years for the good old USA, but there seems to be a ground-swell to get our friends in Washington moving towards legislation that will benefit the country as a whole vs. help their campaign funds.
When I think of Mariani Landscape and Mariani Nurseries, I go back to our humble beginnings. My father, Vito Mariani Sr., came to this country in 1954 with a 6th grade education and the shirt
on his back and never looked back. We didn’t speak Italian in our home because we were Americans and Americans spoke English. Every single night my dad would read book after book on every subject imaginable as he had a hunger and passion to learn. Each and every Saturday after he got the crews started, he would load me and my four brothers into the pickup truck and off to the Highland Park library so that each of us could select a book to read for the coming week. He would always preach that in this country if you had a good education and had a great work ethic you could do anything!
I will never forget one morning the principal at Immaculate Conception Grade School pulled me out of class. For those of you who know me, I guess you would assume that this was not unusual. But since I had been a good boy that week it caught me by surprise. Not only had she taken me out of class, but my brothers John and Vito,Jr. were also pulled from their classes. Now I was frightened and thought something really horrible must have happened. Well our father showed up and said he wanted us to see a major project he was doing on the lake in Highland Park and so off we went. In the back yard overlooking Lake Michigan was a concrete foundation and as we stood there a helicopter came over the top of the house and lowered a sculpture onto the foundation. I looked at my dad and said,”This is great – you took us to see a helicopter.” At which he gave me a look only a father can give to his oldest son and said, “I didn’t pull you from school to see a helicopter. I pulled you from school to show you this magnificent home and to tell you a story.” The home belonged to a gentleman who had immigrated to this country as a teen, put himself through school and then had managed to build one of the largest manufacturing businesses in the state of Illinois. My dad looked at us and said,” This, my sons, is the greatest country in the world. The land of opportunity for all that work hard and dream big.” It did make an impression on the three oldest boys and I think has impacted the way each of us look at life.
As I look at our current state of affairs I know it’s easy to get down and for some, even give up. I want each and every one of you to know we are still bullish on the prospects for sustaining a healthy workplace for all of our associates so they can earn a fair wage allowing them to nurture and grow their families and contribute to the community. None of this would be possible without your years of support and for that we all
thank you.
