Remembrance/Eulogy delivered at Rocco’s memorial service on 12/30/2021 - by Joseph R. Ruggiero, son

Rocco Robert Ruggiero, who went by Rocco to people he worked with, but was called Bob by his family and friends. I called him Dad. He, like I, was named after his grandfather as a sign of respect and admiration. He grew up in Brooklyn and the earliest memories that he would share surrounded WW2 and growing up in a three floor walk-up building with his father, mother, and sister, living above his aunt and uncle’s grocery store on the corner of Carlton and Park Avenues in Brooklyn, NY. They lived on the top floor. From his descriptions it sounded like a protected and comfortable childhood. Not poor, but not anywhere close to rich either.

Dad was blessed because he was smart. So much so that he skipped a grade in elementary school. They didn't have gifted and talented programs in the day so that was the way they handled very smart kids like him. This resulted in his being the youngest in his classes during all of his schooling. He shined early in elementary school and later went to Brooklyn Technical H.S. which required taking a placement exam to get into. He also did well there and he enjoyed studying chemistry but he told the story of breaking one too many expensive thermometers in the process.

When he graduated he headed off to college, the only kid on his block to do so, with a full ROTC scholarship. He, like me later, attended Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute. Not wanting to break more stuff in labs, he decided to study applied math and only break pencils instead. He seemed to like and enjoy both his studies and the structure and discipline of the ROTC program he was in and he joined the Pershing Rifles, a specialty drill group within the program. He continued to excel and rose to be 2nd in command (Exo) of his ROTC unit in college. In later years he pointed out that he slightly knew of another ranking ROTC contemporary of his from the City College of NY who was also in the Pershing Rifles, a man he respected. The man’s name was Colin Powell.

When he graduated college, summe cum laude or top honors, he went into active duty in Fort Belvoir VA. He told me that at that time he found it really difficult to understand many folks who had a southern accent. It was like they were speaking a different language altogether. He did well in the army but he didn't want to stay in the military. He left active duty after a few years but remained in the reserves finally leaving as a captain luckily just before the Vietnam war started. When he left active duty he went to Republic Aviation Corporation on LI and worked on research in the early space program doing applied mathematical work on orbital trajectories. Yes, Dad was a rocket scientist. He also started teaching applied math as an adjunct professor at that time which he did for 20 years at Polytech.

When Dad started at Republic, he worked in the R and D building where he met my mother, the love of his life, Mary. The got to know each other quickly. They dated for merely a month, became engaged, and got married after just six months. No one thought it would last, not even my grandmother, Nonni. Yet they stayed together until his passing. 59 years! Interestingly, my parents went on their honeymoon to the Caribbean, on a cruise ship, during the Cuban Missile Crisis! If things did not go well Dad said at least it would have been over quickly… As was traditional at the time, Mom left work and raised the kids and Dad continued on at Republic, but he had many career ambitions and wanderlust. He worked at Republic, later named Fairchild Republic on and off from 1958 to 1985, leaving and returning 5 times over those years. In fact, at work they called him Rocky V, like in the Stallone movies. One time he went to aircraft competitor Grumman, another time to work with his cousin Lou in NYC on early business computers writing software. I can't even remember the other places he left for and came back from.

It’s a funny thing about Fairchild Republic. It had a special draw that made you keep wanting want to go back. It happened to me to. It was a big employer on LI and many families had relations working there. The Ruggiero's and Petrosky’s were among them. My grandmother worked there first as a riveter during WW2, later my uncles Al and Don, my aunt Lucille, my aunt Betty, my mother, Dad, and finally me. It was a family place and many families were often formed there. When I went to work there starting in summers right after High School, with badge number 117281, Dad was a mid-level manager there and already legendary by that time. In the beginning people didn’t bother to learn my name. I didn't have my own identity. I was called "Rocco's Boy". It probably didn’t help that we looked alike. Many folks still working there also remembered my mother from 20 years before and commented on how lovely she was. Over time I finally did establish my own identity there and my Dad and I would commute together, but he was higher up the chain and was doing the incredible work of shifting the company from drawing boards with blueprints to using CAD/CAM software for the future. While I was there on and off over the summers he rose from a mid-level manager to Vice President of Computer and Information systems. After my last year in college I went to work there, full time, as an instrumentation engineer, but Dad had decided to leave for the last time for greener pastures at Loral Corporation. He worked for Loral and later Lockheed Martin rising through the ranks and he finally retired in the late 1990's a little early because of a prostate cancer diagnosis which he beat.

A quick side story about CAD/CAM. When Dad orchestrated the introduction of CAD/CAM at Fairchild he also had insisted that all of the draftsman be retrained to use the new computers and software, not replaced. In 2007, a fellow approached me who worked for Sikorsky in Shelton and said he remembered me from Fairchild Republic some 20 years earlier, in our catching up with one another he asked me “Is your father still alive?” I said yes. He told me to please thank him. He said that my Dad’s insistence that people be retrained and not just replaced had led to a fruitful and long term career in aerospace design and had allowed him to be a good provider to his family. This fellow had worked at Grumman, Boeing, and Sikorsky designing planes with CAD/CAM after Fairchild Republic shutdown in 1987. He felt that my Dad was instrumental in making that happen.

It may seem that I am speaking a lot about my Dad’s career. I do so because he was very proud of it and because he spent a large portion of his life doing it and I was fortunate enough to experience a part of that time with him. When he finally retired he did some consulting for a few more years but his focus turned more inward toward his family life; following my mother around and binge watching CNN.

Dad didn't really have any hobbies. His family was his hobby. He did do a few other things outside, like the teaching I mentioned earlier. He was a lector for at least 15 years in church and ran the confirmation program too for some years before that. I do remember one time him helping with a big community event in Stony Brook during the nations bicentennial where he had to go from one craft station to another in a large open field collecting money. He always described it as being a legitimate "bag-man".

As his work life was reaching its peak in the 90's his family life changed too and he experienced becoming a grandfather due to some effort on my part. Later Chris and M.E. had kids too and he really was fortunate to get to know all six of his grandchildren as they grew into early adulthood. My Dad was also very fortunate enough to meet three of his great-grandchildren and share some time with them, especially Cora who he called an angel.

Now, as I describe my Dad he did have one unfortunate trait the we all knew he could not control even though he was profoundly smart. He could not seem to master the art of being patient or achieving inner calm. We loved him incredibly, but there were times when this minor defect could lead to challenging relations. I like to think that his impatience and being somewhat hi-strung allowed him to have an attention for details, good, bad, or indifferent. I’m sure that he is at peace now and finally has achieved that calm.

I remember my early relationship with my Dad, and his impatience and tenseness seemed even more severe then. I found that I had more in common with and was simpatico with my grandfather during my childhood and formative years. That finally changed when Dad and I started working together. The closeness increased as we later shared the common bond of having children and our own families and both being parents and later grandparents. As we both got older, we grew closer because of this and spoke more frequently and our mutual respect deepened. To quote Mark Twain "When I was a boy of 14 my father was so unnerving I could hardly stand to have him around, when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much the old man learned in seven years". So it was with my Dad. As we aged together we realized what we both considered important and eternal.

I will miss my Dad very much. All of us will. I will miss his frequent calls to see if everything in my life was copacetic (his word), I will miss talking about the latest resurrection of the A10 Warthog from its destruction by the Air Force. I will miss sharing what I might be doing at work or in my career or in my community. Sometimes I would call to seek out his opinion, just say hello, or to talk about Christina and Diana and if we had heard from them of late and what adventures they might be up to.

Dad was a generous, caring, and fair man who genuinely loved his family. My Dad had a good and complete life and he raised one hell of an equally caring and loving extended family in the process. When all is said and done I’m very proud to be have been called and continue to be Rocco’s Boy.