Businessman travels world to help others

Published February 6, 2007
By Carol Comegno, Courier Post Staff

Aldo Magazzeni had an early brush with poverty. He was born in a poor Italian mountain town in the Abruzzo region of central Italy in a house with no running water and dirt floors. Now a successful businessman, Magazzeni and his two partners in a Lumberton manufacturing company have become champions of those in need.

While company president Robert Santare and vice president Stan Lippincott stay back home at Champion Fasteners -- supervising production of metal fasteners for appliances, large machines and even aircraft -- chief executive officer Magazzeni spends much of his time out of the office.

He travels around the U.S. and more recently to Third World countries to lend a helping hand.  His latest trip was to Africa. There he helped build a water system and helped an orphan village for AIDS children that was being established by a Jesuit priest.  Before that it was Afghanistan, where in 2005 he also installed water systems, bought sewing machines so female prisoners in a Kabul jail could learn a trade and helped establish a day-care center for children. The first company project was helping to build a school and church in Haiti in 2001.

Also in 2005, the company sent Magazzeni and goods to shelters in Louisiana and to a Mississippi vocational school to aid in the recovery from Hurricane Katrina.

"We could have made each other more financially secure, but we have given our time and money to share with others," Magazzeni, 56, said of himself and his two partners. "The three of us believe in the same philosophy -- not to just to take for ourselves but to connect to others around us."

Company vice president Stan Lippincott of Medford said he prefers to remain in the background. "Bob and I live vicariously through the good work that Aldo accomplishes -- sometimes in harm's way -- and we're very proud to be a part of it," he said.

Magazzeni estimates the company and he personally spent about $30,000 in Afghanistan and $20,000 in Africa on materials alone.  He sometimes leaves on a mission without knowing what project he will undertake or whom he will meet.

The Africa trip started as a quest to help an AIDS hospice center in Ethiopia founded by Mother Theresa. However, when he flew to Nairobi, Kenya, Magazzeni said he stayed there a few days to visit a Jesuit priest, the Rev. Angelo D'Agostino, at the urging of a colleague back in New York. That meeting led to him spending seven months in Kenya, making several trips from December 2005 to 2006 to help the priest create a self-sustaining, agricultural village of 1,000 acres for refugee AIDS orphans and their grandparents southeast of Nairobi. The water system there has 6,000 feet of piping and can hold 750,000 liters in storage, he said. "I went on my own to Afghanistan because I just wanted to do some work with people that had been left behind after several wars," Magazzeni said.

He said initial visits to hospitals, an orphanage and some villages enabled him to meet people who knew the needs in certain areas.  That led him to the Panjshir Valley and the building of six small water systems and one in the city of Herat, serving a total of 23,000 people.

He said he always finds the common man in Third World countries hard-working and appreciative and that people treat him with respect as a friend.
"I feel at home in this other world," he said.

Contact staff writer Carol Comegno at (609) 267-9486 or ccomegno@courierpostonline.com.