Born in Waterbury, Connecticut / US, Michael Cappelletti was a 1961 graduate of Croft High School, and earned an associate degree from the Hartford Institute of Accounting while working full time to raise the family.
Died on Sept. 29, Mr. Cappelletti who joined the SPE in 1984 as finance and administrative director, was the former executive director of the Society of Plastics Engineers (SPE) in USA. Surrounded by his family members and friends, Michael Cappelletti died after a long battle with Leukemia in the VITAS Inpatient Hospice Unit at St. Mary’s Hospital in his birth place; Waterbury, Conn. He was 75 at the time of saying goodbye to his peace and fruitful life.
The graduate of the Croft High School and the Hartford Institute of Accounting, Michael Cappelletti became the SPE’s director in 1995 and retired at the end of 2003. Not showing anger about what the Iranian governments did with the Americans after revolution, he never rejected membership requests from Iranian academic students and university professors, and (also) supported the application of the Iranian plastics manufacturers to join the CIPAD assembly* in 1999 at the Quebec City/Canada.
Michael Cappelletti was a religious man and due to that was famous as a “Parishioner of the Church of Cheshire in Connecticut“. He was also a longtime member of the Bristol Fish and Game Club.
The man whose hubbies were fishing, hunting, shooting traps, skeet and old cars (owned a 1957 Thunderbird) served also the plastics industries of US through SPE, and by participation at the national and international conferences, assemblies of CIPAD, exhibitions and meetings helped to expand the US plastics industries’ relations with the world.
His funeral will be held on Oct. 4 at 9 a.m at Maiorano Funeral Home in Waterbury.
* During the directorship of Mr. Cappelletti at SPE many Iranian polymer technologists and students were able to be a member of the SPE. But not only via his soft policy, he also helped Iranians to be more known in the plastics world through membership of the SPE and purchasing its services and publications. At the 1999 annual assembly of the CIPAD in Quebec City of Canada, the present CEO of PIMI (A. A. Saatnia) -which at the time was the publisher of the PIM (Plastics Industry Magazine)- participated at the CIPAD assembly as the representative of the Plastics Machine Manufacturers Association (PMMA) of Iran. He submitted the membership application of the Iranian plastics industries to the assembly’s General Director (Mr. Claudio Celata the Director of ASSOCOMAPLAST), and his application was protested by a couple of American fellows. However, by support of the General Director of CIPAD and also Mr. Cappelletti the other 16 members were convinced to accept Iran as a country of having the technology of plastics.
The PIMI, PIME and PIM’s CEO and colleagues are keen to express their intimate condolences to his family, friends and members of the world’s plastics community. We desire eternal peace and tranquility for the holy spirit of Mr. Michael Cappelletti.
