Subject: Todero Obituary
Author: Patrick Hayes
Date: Mar 2, 2005, 8:36 AM
Post ID: 1718480002
Two days ago, Engineer Umberto Todero of Moto Guzzi passed away after a
short battle with Pancreatic Cancer. The Guzzi main website has a nice
photo and obituary statement but unfortunately it is only in Italian.
There are others on these lists who speak Italian well, but I have not
seen any translation to English as yet. So, today I spent time with my
software and created the following translation. It is crude. I left
some awkward language structure. I had to paraphrase a few idiomatic
expressions. I think you'll get the point. Its the best I can do
quickly. Most of the obituary is in Todero's own words. A legacy which
will surely be missed.
Patrick Hayes
Fremont CA
---------------------------------
Umberto Todero
He has passed away at the age of 82. A historical name bound
inseparably to Moto Guzzi, and esteemed in the view of all world
motorcyclists.
The life of Umberto Todero was broken yesterday afternoon by a bad
illness which had struck a few months ago, and which had suddenly taken
him away from his office and from the his beloved drafting table.
There would need to be thousands of words to describe Umberto Todero, in
order to tell of his 66 year legacy at Moto Guzzi. It it would take
thousands more of words to describe the departed beautiful moments of
listening to the "Umberto" who enchanted "his public" with stories and
anecdotes of life bound to his history at Moto Guzzi, tales full of
richness, of love, and of passion which he has given so much, above all
to youth so that they, through his words, have discovered a unique
unbeatable and matchless world.
But the emotion and the sadness which today fill our hearts, doesn't
allow very many words. Not today. And in order to pay homage to one of
the men who has contributed most, who wrote most beautiful pages of the
history of the brand of The Eagle, we publish his recent writing, to
tell the most exciting moments of his tale, of his life, in Moto Guzzi.
--------------------------------------
"MY LIFE AT GUZZI"
by Umberto Todero
I still remember today with a certain emotion, my first day of work at
Moto Guzzi, with my trembling hand at I set my signature on the document
of confirmation of employment.
It was March 6, 1939. Since then has past many years, 65 exactly, and I
am still present within the walls of Moto Guzzi at Mandello del Lario,
proud to have bound my name to a marque that has known how to support
the name from Italy for more than eighty years of history. This has
been both a job and a sport.
I finished school, and after I graduated then next to the School of
Industrial Craftsmanship in Friuli, where I resided with my family. I
was offered a job by a Fiat Branch in Lecco. I accepted that offer, and
I was therefore forced to relocate to Lecco, where my uncles lived. I
accepted that job, since it didn't preclude the possibility of
continuing my own private research. For that reason I had to submit to
a probationary residency of three months which was obligatory in those
times, before one could realize no objection to employment.
I had the possibility of an interview at Moto Guzzi and they presented
me with an application for job. Destiny favored me, and after a few
days began my long tale bound to Moto Guzzi.
In the course of so many years, always operating in technical activity,
I went on to offices and positions always with higher responsibility. I
began in 1939 with simple jobs to design details, relating the
construction of the motorcycle "Alce", then in phases of research and of
accomplishment; I continued with the development of the "Trialce" to its
end, always working with military products, I began working on "fixed
industrial motors" for use for stand-alone electrical generating units
or compressors in use by the Military and Navy. It was a fundamental
departure of activity and for me a turning point at Moto Guzzi before
the war.
At the end of the war, I was employed in the update and in the
renovation of motorcycles already in production in the postwar period. I
participated regarding research mainly on suspension systems, brake
fittings, transmissions and others, being obliged at the same time to
divide work in the design office with work in the fabricating shop. Thus
I was able to experiment on designs I had planned and realized before.
This was really the period in which I asserted myself in the jobs of
planning and help to Commander Carlo Guzzi.
In 1948 my career underwent an important turning point. I came, in fact,
entrusted to the annex of Engineer Giulio Caesare Carcano, designer of
the V-8 Racer and the 90� �V-Twin� motor, which represents yet today the
symbol of Moto Guzzi.
Engineer Carcano, then Director of the Office of Experiments and
Research, was also entrusted to manage the planning and the testing of
the racing motorbikes. I began under his guidance (he was my great
mentor), the job of designing new racing motorcycles, which brought Moto
Guzzi to the next real comparisons in national and international
competition.
In 1951 I was appointed Deputy Chief of the Racing Division, and the
years which followed are those of my best responsibilities in the circle
of the Racing Division. Beyond to the job of planning, I favored the
job of Managing Director of the Racing Division, and therefore even
more, I worked in new offices bound to the world of competition. The
fatigue, the worries, and the emotions which lived in the span of those
years, is for me unforgettable.
I finished my experience at the Racing Division in 1957. I continued on
with my activities always under the direction of Engineer Carcano, with
whom I shared the realization of new products, among which I want to
remember the Stornello, in versions Tourism and Sport, and which
followed the V7 and the two cylinder �V� motor.
After the death of the Founding Partner, Giorgio Parodi in 1955 and
Carlo Guzzi in 1964, Moto Guzzi went through a series of ownerships,
with so many break down problems as a consequence of diverse
organizational systems. Throughout all of these life changes, my
position stayed unchanged and also my assignment as Chief of Service
Projects stayed the same.
I continued particularly to maintain connections with the offices of the
Ministry of Transportation and with the Association of the
Manufacturers. With these work groups I collaborated in the seventies
to the extension of standards regarding atmospheric pollution on plans
proposed by the Ministry of the Italian Transportation, of the CEE and
of the U.N. through the ISO. This was a very important and demanding
job for research and experimentation.
Indeed, during the 70's, and exactly in 1975, I must remember a large
and unexpected recognition which I received from the Ministry of the
Labor, a telegram, and following afterwards a Decree of the President of
the Republic. He awarded to me the Star of Merit for my mixture of
teaching and working.
Through my job, in all these years I gave a passion and an endless
devotion. I have always achieved satisfaction and recognition, reasons
for which I feel indeed proud to have contributed together so much and I
have been connected to the best fortunes of Moto Guzzi, and to which I
wish a future in continuous crescendo and with rich, new successes.
---------------------------------
Moto Guzzi won't forget the tenacity and the stubbornness which
distinguished Umberto Todero in his professional life and his private life.
His memory is present today in all of us, and he will always stay alive
in Moto Guzzi through his designing capability. He is bound from the
past to the present as an active protagonist up to the last instant of
his visions.
Moto Guzzi pulls together around the family in memory of a man who, in
his "special simplicity�, has taught so much, above all to those people
who have known how to listen to him and who have had the honor of
knowing him and appreciating him, always and every way.
Good-bye Umberto, we won't ever forget you.