Enrico Comerio, entrepreneur and co-owner of Solbiate Olona, Italy-based Rodolfo Comerio, died Feb. 25 at the age of 85.
Enrico co-owned Rodolfo Comerio with his brother Carlo Comerio. Today the company is recognized as a global technological leader in the design and construction of calendering lines for the production of plastic and rubber films. And that was due, in great part, to the passion with which Enrico led the company.
"Enrico truly loved his job, he was an entrepreneur who always believed in the value of innovation, but most of all the value of people," Carlo Comerio said of his brother. "Rodolfo Comerio was not just a company to him, but a mission, a family legacy he wished to grow and project into the future. I had the good fortune to share a long professional and life path with him and his memory will remain alive in us forever."
Rodolfo Comerio was founded in 1878 in Busto Arsizio, Italy, by Enrico's great-grandfather, Rodolfo Comerio. His son, Enrico (Enrico Comerio's grandfather and namesake), expanded the business into the design and manufacture of machine tools, specializing in parallel lathes and double-column planers. Later, Enrico's father, Rodolfo, shifted the company's focus to machinery for rubber processing, particularly for tire production. Starting in the 1920s, Enrico studied the processing of plastics, especially PVC, and in 1942, he built and installed Italy's first calender for PVC processing, marking a major technological milestone.