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MEMORABLE WEEKEND/B3
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THURSDAY-FRIDAY, MAY 24-25, 2012
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THOMAS J. MIRABITO, SR. • 1919-2012
N SINGLE LIFE, HOW DID ONE MAN BUILD SO MUCH?
Tom Mirabito Sr. and Concetta relax in 2010 in their Sidney home on James Street, named after their son who died at age 5.
AllOTSEGO.business
Jim Kevlin/
Patriarch Gone, Lessons Remain For Loved Ones And For Region
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By JIM KEVLIN
SIDNEY f adversity tests character, Tom Mirabito had his tested that day in 1984. It was about this time of year, and a tanker-truck driver was unloading a delivery at Mirabito Fuel Group’s Cartwright Avenue facility, as Ken S. Paden, Tri-Town News editor/publisher who covered the event, remembers it. The driver didn’t notice the holding A young GM, Joe tank was overflowing. A spark set the Mirabito found this spilling gasoline alight, and the whole Mass card on his tank farm went sky high. desk. The lesson: That’s a body blow for any business, People matter. and any businessman, particularly one nearing retirement. But Thomas J. Mirabito Sr., who passed away Wednesday, May 2, at 93, had a career’s worth of experience dealing with situations both promising and challenging. His first reaction was: It’s a blessing that no one was killed, his son Joseph P. Mirabito, now Mirabito Energy president/CEO, related the other day in an interview in his office in the company’s extensive downtown Binghamton headquarters. Second, with part of the fleet damaged, how could the company obtain tankers in short order to ensure service to customers was Please See PATRIARCH, B4
Anyone can thrive in good times, but the 1984 fire that destroyed Mirabito Energy’s tank farm in Sidney brought out the best in Tom Mirabito Sr., who – his son Joe remembers – remained calm, was thankful there was no loss of life, and learned lessons to ensure no one would be endangered in the future.
Mirabito Energy President/CEO Joseph P. Mirabito, left, brother John and other family-member executives meet regularly under portraits of grandfather James, father Tom Sr. and Uncle Soddy.
All his life, Tom Mirabito Sr. was proud he played on Norwich High School’s “unbeaten, untied and unscored-upon” 1937 football team.
Tom Mirabito’s winning ways extended to politics, where he allied with the state’s top Republicans to move local initiatives ahead. Here he poses with Lt. Gov. Malcolm Wilson.
Schuyler Lake Blacksmith Shop Open For Business By LIBBY CUDMORE SCHUYLER LAKE
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restored, historically accurate blacksmith’s shop with a hitching post out front might have its downsides. “I just hope people don’t show up with horses looking for shoes!” joked
Gift shop opens May 26.
Bill Isaac, owner of the new Old Blacksmith Shop & Gallery. Though he won’t be shoeing horses anymore, the building will be open as an art gallery and gift shop, specializing in crafts and watercolors, on Saturday, May 26. Wood carvings and duck decoys from Jonathan Dowd, Native American pottery and basket work Please See ISAAC, B4
AllOTSEGO.business
Jim Kevlin/
THE FREEMAN’S JOURNAL • HOMETOWN ONEONTA FOR DAILY NEWS UPDATES, VISIT www.
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Bill Isaac, second from left, and his crew of Nathan Bemis, Michael Conners and Devon Gurley admired the newly renovated first floor of the former smithy.
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AllOTSEGO.life
THURSDAY-FRIDAY, MAY 24-25, 2012
Tom Mirabito Loved People, And That Made Him Master Negotiator PATRIARCH/From B1 uninterrupted? Longer-term, Tom Mirabito relocated the tank farm to the commerce park on the other side of Route 8 – a commerce park he’d helped establish as village mayor in the 1950s and ‘60s – so if a fire ever happened again, neighbors would not be in danger. “That’s how he would take a hit,� said son Joe. “He would shake out the cobwebs and go back at it – like Joe Frazier. When he took a hit, he made sure we all learned from it, not just him.� That Tom Mirabito Sr. passed away just as Otsego County business leaders are rededicating themselves to economic development raises a question: How did he do it? How did he do so much a half-century ago that many people in the business community consider impossible today? Some of his accomplishments as mayor – 195361, and again in 1967-71 – were more common in an era of federal largesse: Sidney got a municipal pool and a water-treatment plant (although other communities lack equivalent facilities even today.) But also under his tenure, the village annexed land from the adjoining town (considered impossible today), the Sidney Municipal Airport expanded (it is still the most thriving in the region), a commerce park was created and Keith Clark, later At-A-Glance calendars, now Mead-Westvaco, was attracted there. During that period, Tom Mirabito – along with brother Soddy – was continuing to expand the business he took over from his father James in 1942, at age 22, from a coal distributor to the foremost fuel-oil distributor in the region.
This favorite family photo appeared with Tom Mirabito Sr.’s obituary.
At one point, he said in an interview in 2010, there was a Mirabito oil-burner installer in every cellar in these parts as the postWWII U.S. shifted from the one fuel to the other. To his father, said son Joe, oil wasn’t just another product, it represented convenience and freedom for his customers: “You wouldn’t have to rush home from a dance to stoke the burner.� A Republican – although an ally and occasional friendly adversary of Joe Knapp, the local Democratic leader – Tom forged close ties as state Sen. Warren Anderson, R-Binghamton, rose to majority leader. I-88 – the Senator Warren M. Anderson Expressway, which passes Sidney and is connected to the village by a four-lane arterial – could as deservedly be called the Thomas J. Mirabito Sr. Expressway, some say. Joe – raised on Sidney’s James Street with brothers Tom Jr. and John and sister Rosemary; mom Concetta (Aunt Tini to neighbors) presided – remembers learning lessons from his dad and Uncle Soddy before he even knew they were lessons. “How people should be treated – I didn’t read it. I saw it,� he said. If a farmer
walked into the dealership in worn clothes and manure on his boots, “they would treat that person the same way as the person who came in with a three-piece suit – and you would see that happen time after time.� Charity wasn’t extended thoughtlessly, the son observed. If Tom Mirabito concluded someone seeking help was a hard worker down on his luck, there was never a problem extending credit. If he concluded the individual was trying to game the system, no deal. Chuck D’Imperio, the author and WZOZ radio personality whose boyhood home backed up to the Mirabitos, remembers “Tom Mirabito was a very fair guy, even to the little kids.� “If there was an errant ball that broke a window,� he’d take it in stride, said Chuck. “He would make sure we got the window fixed. He would talk to our parents. But he knew we were kids, and that we were going to do things that kids do.� Growing up, Joe took his dad for granted, the way kids do. His father was president of a growing company, mayor, president of the Sidney Chamber of Commerce, developer of the neighborhood between downtown and the high school, but “I never understood the force he was behind a lot of these things, because I never suffered for any attention. He always had time for me and my brothers and sisters.� Returning from Lemoyne, his father nominally retired, Joe started attending Empire State Petroleum Association and other board meetings. “When they found out my name, they always wanted to know how my father was. They always had a story. They always said he was a visionary. I was in my
late 20s. It took that long to realize, I’ve live with an icon all my life and I didn’t know it.� Easing into the business with his father and uncle, Joe learned that when the brothers made a deal, the deal stuck. “It’s Tom,� he could see a businessman on the other side of the table saying to himself. “We’re going to shake on it and consider it done.� If a better offer came along before the papers were signed, it didn’t matter. That’s what happened in one case, involving a “substantial sum of money,� said the son. “That’s when it hit me: This guy has earned a reputation of integrity.� Tom Mirabito’s philosophy wasn’t to avoid mistakes, as long as they were sins of commission – sins of omission he couldn’t tolerate. That helps explain why the company moved into oil, then into convenience stores – the first Quickway opened in Masonville in the early ’80s – then bought a larger terminal in Binghamton and moved the headquarters there from Sidney, then acquired Mang Insurance, and now, with Corning Natural Gas Corp., is looking to move into natural-gas transmission. “Well, that project doesn’t scare me,� the father would say. “My brothers or I would say: Well, it does scare me,� said Joe. Tom Mirabito was born in Norwich in 1919. His father, an immigrant from Italy, founded James Mirabito Coal Co. in 1927, and the son worked there through high school, which kept him in peak condition for football: He was a member of Norwich High School’s famed 1937 team, “unbeaten, untied, unscoredupon,� and was proud of
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Fri. June 8th Sat. June 9th
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Investors of all levels and the public (ages 21 and up)! Come and learn how to get involved in the Motion Picture to be filmed on location in our region...
Thurs., June 7 8 pm open seating
Oneonta Theatre 47 Chestnut St. 643-4022 Q & A with the Writer/Director for details www.oneontatheatre.com email: coolbullproductions@aol.com 818-642-4876
4 Market Street • Oneonta, NY 13820 607-432-6600 • www.greenearthoneonta.com M-F 8-8 • Saturday 8-6 • Sunday 11-4
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The Old Blacksmith’s Shop & Gallery
FiNe artS & craFtS
FREE SCREENING Join us for a presentation of the creative short film version based on the original screenplay.
7347 State Hwy. 28 ScHuyler lake, Ny
that association all his life. If that taught him how to work with others, and perhaps to care for others as well. Joe remembers on taking over as general manager in 1984: A longtime employee had passed away, and he missed the funeral. When he arrived back at the office, on the corner of his desk reserved for missives from his father, there was a Mass card. The father never said a word about it, but the son got the message: “You better get grounded.� Joe still carries that Mass card around in his briefcase today. While all of these talents built a foundation for accomplishment, it was Tom Mirabito’s ability at face-toface negotiations that made things happen, that built consensus. In business, in government, in his work with the chambers, as a creator of Tri-Town Hospital, as a SUNY Oneonta College Council member, when a thorny issue arose, he would arrange to sit down at a table with the parties involved. Then he would patiently listen. At some point, he would say something like this: “You can see how this affects you. But how does this affect other people out there?� Then he would listen. “How can this benefit you, and how can it hurt you?� he might ask at another point. As he listened, Tom Mirabito would change his own mind, son Joe said. He wouldn’t go into the conversation with his mind made up. When finally he could say, “It’s going to benefit more people than it’s not,� and everyone agreed, the negotiation was over. Bill Davis, retired owner of Country Club Auto who was a partner in a Sidney
auto dealership and worked with Tom Mirabito, saw that magic work. “His personality,� is how Davis explained it. “He was so approachable. He would talk things through to get things resolved. He didn’t antagonize people. He had a manner that led to success because of his ability to negotiate.� Said Davis, “I respected him greatly.� Like everyone in life, Tom Mirabito Sr. had slings and arrows aimed his way, but he saw things he didn’t like as challenges to overcome. “When he moved to Sidney, that became his community,� Joe said. “He was a visionary. He saw what needed to be done. It just wasn’t business. It was about the quality of life – the pool, the library.� After Tom was established, his dad came from Norwich for a visit and the son drove him around. They saw the water-treatment plant, the swimming pool, the airport, Keith Clark. Tom looked over and saw his father had tears in his eyes. Years before when he first visited Sidney, a recent immigrant, he couldn’t get a haircut, James told his son. The barber heard his thick accent and turned him away. The father and son shared a moment of quiet satisfaction. That story wouldn’t have made Tom Mirabito angry, said Joe. It would have inspired him to go back at the tasks at hand with ever more determination. “I see a guy who loved people,� said Joe, looking at the photo of his dad that ran with the obituary, (and appears on this page.) “He loved ALL people. He could just relate to everyone. When I look at him, I know why – because he was so sincere.�
Renovated Smithy Opens As Gift Shop SMITHY/From B1 prints and small watercolors will be among the offerings. “It’s all local,� he said. “Nothing plastic, nothing made in China.� It was a buy one, get one free deal on buildings in Schuyler Lake when Isaacs acquired the property in 2008. “I was interested in buying the body shop next door,� he said. “The second building on the property was in pretty bad shape, the windows were broken, and the appraisal came in at zero – just an old, vacant building.� The former blacksmith’s shop is one of the oldest buildings in the Town of Exeter, the oldest deed dating back to a sale in 1829. The original Schuyler Lake Hotel was built in 1825, and the shop was built shortly after to service horses. The double hearth is one of the few remaining in New York State. The second floor was built
in the 1880s, Isaac believes, to dry hops. “They probably used the heat from the hearth,� he said. Though the lathe is original, the plaster has been replaced. “It just crumbled in our hands,� he said. Through the 1950s, when the body shop sold farm implements, many were stored over there. The front wall was collapsing, and an overhead door had been put in its place. “It was all old lumber and junk,� he said. “We found horseshoes, tools, rasps – we had quite a few truckloads.� In an effort to keep the building as close to historically accurate as possible, original materials were utilized whenever building code would allow for it. Old beams were repurposed as shelves, and although the “cedar� shingles are fireproof composites, they maintain the look of shingles that would have been used in the original building.
Recipient of the 2010 Small Business Breakthrough Award!
friday, June 1st • 7-8 pm ď … Downtown Oneonta’s First Friday Artist Reception Featuring the Sculpture of David Hacker
Saturday, June 10th • 1-3 pm ď … Local Author Book Signing
Lindsey Brook: Citizen Trudy and the Crackdown
Saturday, June 16th • 1-3 pm ď … Local Author Book Signing David Irving: The Protein Myth
4th - June 11th ď … June The Great Green Book Swap
Time to bring in your tickets & pick out your books! (or $1 each if you don’t have a ticket)
198 Main St., Oneonta, NY • 607-433-8898 www.greentoadbookstore.com