1960
Following eight months
of negotiations, Melocco Brothers was sold to Blue Metal Industries (BMI) in
March 1960. It was the end of an era. Galli, John and Graham stayed with the
company, as did Romolo's son, John Curtis, and Rosina's son, Tony Fabris. Galli
joined the Board of BMI. He remained a Director until 1970 and passed away the
following year. The other family members left, one by one, to start their own
businesses.
Melocco
Brothers was probably the first company outside the United States to develop
a ready mixed concrete operation as we know it today. Of the company’s many
achievements, the least known is its pioneering contribution to the concrete
and construction industry. It was also a company for and about family and community.
It existed because of the dedication, not only of the three brothers who steered
it, but of their family members (men like Romolo and Remo Cicutto and Dido Ripka)
and the skilled artists and artisans who came largely from the Italian community
in Australia and abroad. Lastly it could exist only because of the devotion
and sacrifice of the Melocco women, beginning with Peter, Tony and Galli’s mother,
Teresa, who saw in her boys the potential to grow beyond the boundaries of their
tiny northern Italian town.
“My
father thought that Melocco Brothers was the greatest firm ever built and to
work for Meloccos was a privilege. He liked the men who worked there and every
morning, after the morning conference, he used to go down into the shop and
he’d walk around and talk to every one of them. He knew them all and he liked
them all and, if he could help them, he would. Most of them came from Friuli
and it was like a family.” — John Melocco
“There was a man working at Melocco Brothers called Sam Guido and Dad heard that his wife and child were about to arrive from Italy but he hadn’t finished the house he was building for them. So Dad took him aside and Sam told him the story and Dad asked, ‘So how much work is there still to be done on this house?’ And Sam said, ‘Well, I don’t have the roof on yet.’ So Dad asked him how much it would cost and lent Sam the money to finish the house before his family arrived. That sort of thing happened in the company a lot. It was a family company. My father knew every one of the men who worked there, even when there were more than 100 of them.” — Graham Melocco