“When I was a kid growing up in Waltham, I lived next door to a man, a great man, Thomas Nolan. He was my mentor. He had a plumbing business, and even when I was little, I would work in his shop, picking out stock, loading trucks, repairing water feeders. My own father was an upholsterer, and for a long time I thought I would go into the furniture business. My plan was to go to college and study business. Then one day, Mr. Nolan said to me, ‘Kid, you know there are businessmen still walking the streets from the last Depression. You should be an engineer.’ So I decided to become an engineer.”

More than a half-century later, John Cannistraro stills refer to Thomas Nolan as his mentor. He laughs, recalling one of Nolan’s many suggestions.

“One time he said to me, ‘You can always get ideas from a dope,’ and so I learned to listen to everybody—and I expect everybody to listen to me!”

Once he decided to become an engineer, he discovered that his high school business courses were not sufficient.

“To get into engineering school, you had to have taken all of these math courses, geometry, trigonometry. I didn’t have any of that, so I went back to Huntington School and took extra courses. I would haunt those teachers with questions. Then I went to see the Dean of the Tufts Engineering School. I remember I had $25 to my name. I walked into the Dean’s office and he said to me, ‘We’ll take you if you have all As.’

“I couldn’t tell the Dean I had all As, because I didn’t. But I was third in my class, out of fifty. I told the Dean that MIT always took the top five students from Huntington. One week later, I got the letter saying I was admitted to Tufts.”

Today on Cannistraro’s office wall hangs a special “Career Achievement” award from the Tufts School of Engineering.

After graduating from Tufts, Cannistraro took jobs in the contracting business, including a stint with J.C. Higgins.

“It was the best job I ever had working for somebody else. I met some of the nicest, most intelligent people that I ever met in this business.

“I always made of point of being home for dinner with my family. Rita and I always put that emphasis on family. I started my own business in one of the bedrooms in our Newton apartment.

“One day I was in there working, and a call came in. I remember it was quarter to six, dinnertime. Rita picked up the phone and said, ‘The office is closed.’

“The guy says, ‘But he’s right there at the house.’ Rita just says, ‘Please call tomorrow. The office is closed.’ She hung up, and we had dinner.”

Cannistraro today has a number of his children working in the business. These include company President John Cannistraro, Jr., Anne Marie Cannistraro Cotton, and Vince, David, Joe, and Eddie Cannistraro. Most of all, the elder Cannistraro credits his wife Rita for helping make his success possible.

“After we got going, and I bought my first building, some days I would come home stressed. Rita would ask me questions. She would take notes. Then she goes into the home office, writes a letter. And the problem would go away. She’s the most reliable, dependable, intelligent person I ever met in my life.

“I remember I was having trouble with a general contractor getting change orders approved. Rita was eight months pregnant, and one night we drove over to Boston, waiting for the contractor and the developer to return from dinner.

“They came back, and the developer said, ‘I can’t accept change orders like this. Everything has to be separated.’

 “So we borrowed the typewriter and some paper. Rita sat there and she typed everything up. At ten, Rita took the car home. At midnight the guys came out of their meeting. They approved the change orders, took me into town for a drink, and drove me home.”

To this day, Cannistraro is a man with exceptional energy and focus. He proudly gives a tour of his shop (which could double as a major supply house), and he discusses the value of prefabrication and quality control. He has many stories about jobs on which he worked.

“My first plumbing job was a launderette in a strip mall. I went out to the job, and I could see it needed some underground piping. Eddie Duggan was on a job next door, and he saw I needed men. ‘Don’t worry about it, lad,’ he said, ‘We’ll take care of it.’ Eddie had his guys put in the pipe—at no charge.”

Cannistraro is a businessman who has a toughened sense of humor about competition in the construction business. As he describes the launderette job, he adds with a smile:

“If he knew then what he knows now, Eddie would probably wish he’d put a two-by-four in the pipe. But I have a tremendous amount of respect for the Duggans.

“In my business I follow a few basic rules. I call it my Triangle of Success. One: Complete all your contracts and obligations, including paying your bills on time. Two: It is a moral obligation to keep your clients out of trouble. And three: Honor and respect all your employees.”

What advice would Cannistraro give to a young person going into the plumbing industry today?

“When I look back, I can tell you that nothing was ever planned. But things happened. I agree with the writer who said, ‘There is never a day when it is not worthwhile to be at your best.’ ”

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