On that grey morning, in our mechanic’s office a call came which would change our day and, perhaps, our lives.
October 1997, we are located in a small town in the city of Bergamo, in northern Italy, GEMELS was wrapped in a cold cloak and the fog rolled through the streets.
That morning, the phone rang with urgent tone. On the other side of the line, the voice of our customer, a loyal dealer, rang out impatiently: there was a problem! The valve we had supplied was returning to our warehouse for our checks. “It’s going to be a busy day!” I thought to myself.
For some years it had been decided to make products of our design that we would sell on the Italian and international market.
As, Angelo F., I had doubts at first about this choice taken by my sons, but as time went by, I had to change my mind…
In the middle of morning, the box with the incriminate valve arrived, delivered directly from our friend and costumer Gigi Schiavetto. Once opened I saw, in addition to the valve, a small note saying: “congratulations, it’s leaking!”
Those words hit me like an arrow in the heart, but I tried to hide my bitterness. Meanwhile, Gigi, with his usual thoughtfulness and wisdom, tried to downplay the problem.
I replied with a hint of gratitude, promising to check the fault and provide an immediate replacement… But it was too late: Gigi’s customer had already taken care of it himself.
I handed the box to my son, who was the creator, I still remember his face when he read the note…
Even though I did not agree with the decision to produce valves, I had to admit that that the company was quite successful with continuous improvements.
As any parent, I would have liked to have been able to be helpful and spend more time with my children in the company but one day in November 2018, I left forever without being able to even say goodbye to them…
Yes, it was a failure to receive this valve! Humiliating, I will never forget it. I will never forget the act of my dad Angelo who, while I was lost in finding the problems, reached out to me and with a friendly expression said: “Don’t worry, it takes time, you did everything from scratch without any help”. It is common to have problems but little by little you will get better.
Today, I think that parents who see their child fail, whether at work, school, or any other challenge, feel such pain that if they could, they would make it their own…
The boy who made that bad impression is me, Marco Facchinetti, from that failure came state-of-the-art equipment and sophisticated DFMEA test, able to reduce error limits close to zero with a PPM equal or almost 002; we would be able to encase two mosquitoes inside a valve and if one suffered from asthma we would notice.
Today we produce thousands of valves a day and those very few returns that happen are for incorrect or unsuitable applications to the valve chosen by the customer.
This is us, our company was born from hard work, sacrifices, honesty, humility, from defeats and successes, from tenacity and perseverance.
We never stop learning, disappointments are the starting point of a new rebirth and continued evolution, as the ancient Greeks used to say: “Sufferings are teachings.”
The courage to be able to admit that we are vulnerable is the key to our success in extreme sports. And the story goes on… life is great, no matter if you are young or not, never stop at the first mistake, try again until you get better.
