Both of Michael Rizzo”™s grandfathers were cabinetmakers, so it wasn”™t unusual that he attended trade school in New York City, to study the craft. “I liked working with wood,” he said, but “after I got into cabinetmaking, I realized there was more money to be made in construction.” And, he said, “I didn”™t like being confined to a shop and going to the same place every day.”
Instead, he apprenticed as a union carpenter for four years while working for a general contractor in Manhattan. “It”™s funny how life changes things,” he said of that shift from cabinetry to general contracting ”“ and an even sharper shift from his childhood dreams. “I”™ve always had a desire to fly, and as a young kid my aspirations were to be a pilot,” he said. But “life kind of takes you on different paths.”
Rizzo”™s parents were hopeful he would attend college, but that learning path didn”™t appeal to him. “I went to high school for one year, but it just wasn”™t my thing. I really gravitated toward the trades, but I just don”™t know why I never went the career path to be a pilot. In retrospect, it”™s probably the best thing that never happened. It”™s a tough road to become an airline pilot.”
But that childhood aspiration never really left him. “It was in the back of my mind for quite a few years,” he said of that unsatisfied desire to fly. It would be more than 25 years before he could fulfill his childhood dream and slip the surly bonds of earth and dance the skies on silvered wings.
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Fortuitous choice
Rizzo worked for that Manhattan general contractor for about 10 years, “and then decided I could do it myself and went into business,” starting Caldwell and Walsh Building Construction with a partner in 1983, the same year he moved into a fixer-upper in Ridgefield with his pregnant wife. “I”™m a glutton for punishment,” he quipped about that trio of life-changing events all crowded into one year.
“I”™ve always had an entrepreneurial spirit,” he said, “and I knew I didn”™t want to be 40 or 50 or 60 years old and still working on tools. I thought I had the wherewithal to run a business, but my father thought I was crazy. He worked for Union Carbide and was from the generation that said you work for a large company and you have your security, that kind of thing.”
Caldwell and Walsh, by the way, is a bit like Haagen-Dazs ice cream, as far as made-up names go. Rizzo had a partner interested in joining him in business, and they took some business courses at New York University. When they were forming the company, “we were sitting in the lawyer”™s office and he asked what we would call it. We said, ”˜Why not Caldwell and Walsh?”™” ”“ the name of a fictitious company used for textbook cases. “They were successful at everything they did,” Rizzo said.
It proved to be a fortuitous choice. Today Rizzo”™s Caldwell and Walsh ”“ his partner retired in 1998 ”“ generates about $44 million a year from commercial construction in New York City and upper Fairfield County and continues to grow at a rate of about 5 percent a year. The Manhattan office concentrates on universities and educational facilities such as Columbia University Medical College and New York University and generates about $24 million a year, Rizzo said. “Up here in Connecticut we do a lot of work for banks, acted as the owner”™s representative on Danbury Hospital”™s Praxair cancer addition and are doing the emergency room project for them now, restored the old train station in Danbury and recently completed the Kenosia Avenue fire station” in Danbury.
He moved from his home in Ridgefield to Newtown in 1999 “because Ridgefield was getting a little too crowded,” and moved his business to the town two years later. “We needed more space than we had in Ridgefield and wanted to consolidate our equipment and operations,” he said of the move to the 7,500-square-foot facility on an acre of land.
But life has a way of returning to the path less traveled. Around 1998 Rizzo was reading an article about Angel Flight, a nonprofit group of volunteer small-aircraft pilots who fly ill patients ”“ mostly children ”“ to medical facilities for specialized treatment. “I thought it would be a great thing to learn to fly and do something like that,” he said. He mentioned the article to his wife, who bought him an introductory flight class at Danbury Airport for his birthday.
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Sacrificial giving
The time wasn”™t quite right for Rizzo to tackle the rigors of pilot training, but a year later “I saw another article about Angel Flight, and I had more time, so I signed up and did it,” earning his pilot”™s license in 2000, his instrument rating in early 2001. In the fall of 2000, he purchased a four-seat 1980 Cessna 172 for $90,000, which was “a little pricey, but it had a lot of good equipment on it,” including an autopilot, a GPS, two glide slopes for instrument flights, a storm scope and two radios. He began his volunteer Angel Flights of patients in August 2001, just before 9/11.
“My first flight was from Monticello, N.Y., to Boston Logan with a mother and her little girl about 5 years old who was suffering from cancer,” Rizzo said. The girl and her mother had been on previous flights to the hospital, so both were at home in the Cessna. “A lot of these Angel Flight people use the service quite a bit,” he said. “I”™ve only had one patient where it was her first flight.”
About 75 percent of his more than 35 mercy flights so far have been for children, most of them suffering from cancer or burns. One was for a young man about 20 who had a heart transplant but developed cancer, and “on one of the last flights I flew with him, he said he couldn”™t do it any more and stopped taking his medications,” Rizzo said. “He passed away.”
Another flight was for a 30-year-old woman with six months to live who wanted to fly to Montreal to visit her family. Rizzo”™s Cessna began to take on ice but he couldn”™t climb to melt the ice because of the woman”™s lung disease. He had no oxygen on the plane, so he landed at Glens Falls in upstate New York, rented a car and drove the women five hours to Montreal. “Your commitment is to get the patient where they have to go, but you have to keep safety in mind and can”™t push that envelope,” he said.
The flights “are life-changing,” he said. “I”™m a firm believer in giving back to the community,” and is on the board of the Bridgeport Diocese Catholic Charities, the Newtown Scholarship Association and the United Way of Western Connecticut in Danbury. “The difference with Angel Flight is that it”™s one-on-one. You”™re in the cockpit flying this person somewhere and for the most part their life is in an upheaval. Some of them have money, some of them don”™t. The suitcase for one guy I flew was a brown paper bag with a strap around it.
“The thing that amazes me is that, being brought up as a Catholic, giving was supposed to hurt,” Rizzo said of sacrificial giving. “But I sometimes feel embarrassed by the rewards of giving, like it”™s not supposed to be like that.”
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