By Enrico Negrello & Catia Masarotti
It was a snowy day in early December the first time I came to Riverton. I confess I had to google the place, from overseas you hear the stories of cowboys and the Rockies, Yellowstone, Yogi Bear and you picture it as a far far away place, full of myths and legends.
When I drove up to Main Street to reach Pertech, the business I had just purchased, I saw the Christmas decorations and the smell the coffee roasted from Brown Sugar, the movie theater, a couple of banks, and the small restaurants, everything was in the right place the way I thought, a perfect white Christmas.
The Riverton community preserves its strong cowboy western identity. We are helping each other, and I say we, because I feel being part of this community, it’s like if time has not passed from the days of the great western expansion when everything was more difficult, food and the cold was a serious thing.
If you stop on the side of the road you can be sure there will be someone (with license plate of WY) stopping and asking, “everything is OK? You guys need help.”
Niccolo’ Macchiavelli (a famous Italian philosopher) once said that it’s not the richness of the soil or the abundance of natural resources that are making one nation great but it’s the strength of its people; that is exactly what you find here, great people, with a big heart and hard workers.
I still remember the day I walked into Brown Sugar for a coffee because someone said they were making great Italian espresso, when a random person just asked me: “Are you the guy who purchased Pertech?” “YES” I replied, and then he said “Well, thank you so much for keeping the jobs here and for everything you are doing, I heard great things”. I enjoyed that Italian espresso with the greatest joy in my life.
That is a perfect example of a community that cares, he was not an employee of Pertech and not the Mayor of the city, he was “one of us”. So YES I will do whatever it takes to defend these jobs, creating a long wave for a future of skilled workers in a community that will always be a cowboy country, with just internet access.
And we’ve made some friends, not just the random neighbors, but real good friends who are helping you, in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health.
Weather is sometimes harsh but it’s nice to have the swing of the seasons and being able to enjoy the great outdoors, both in winter with snowshoeing or skiing and in summertime with amazing hiking or kayaking in some of the most beautiful places on earth (and I am from Italy…). For me it is not everything about business, it’s all the emotions that are driving us to do incredible things beyond the imaginable, I fell in love with the place, I fell in love with the people!