ROCCA, Roberto

Roberto Rocca passed away peacefully on June 10, 2003 in his 81st year. He was born in Milan in 1922 and graduated from the Politécnico di Milano (1945) with a degree in mechanical engineering. He continued his studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he became a Doctor in Science (PhD) in 1950.

In 1945, Roberto Rocca joined his father Agostino, one of the key players in the Italian steel industry during the two world wars, in the foundation of Techint. During the fifties and sixties, he contributed to the rapid growth of the new company operating in the steel, engineering and construction industries.

When in 1978 he succeeded his father as head of the Group, Techint was an organization with 15 thousand employees and two steel manufacturing facilities in Argentina (Siderca in Campana, producer of seamless steel tubes, and Propulsora Siderúrgica in Ensenada, producer of flat steel products) and international activities in the field of engineering and construction, mainly concentrated in Latin America.

In the eighties, Roberto Rocca fostered the growth in Techint's industrial activities through a series of investments in the mills, and in research and development; a program that culminated in the expansion of Siderca in Campana (Argentina) in a move which gave the Group the possibility to play a key role in the international market for seamless tubes. Those were the years during which Techint's construction activities operated at a global level with a strong presence in infrastructure construction.

In the nineties, Techint's steel tube activities expanded with the incorporation into the Group of Tamsa in Mexico and Dalmine in Italy -where Roberto Rocca became President in 1996. There followed the incorporation of NKKTubes in Japan, AlgomaTubes in Canada, Confab in Brazil and Tavsa in Venezuela. This was the foundation that led to the creation of Tenaris in 2002, a company listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and the stock exchanges in Buenos Aires, Milan and Mexico, which consolidates all Techint's activities in the steel tubes business and of which Roberto Rocca was elected Chairman.

Also in the nineties, Roberto Rocca led another substantial steel project: the creation of an integrated pole of flat steel production activities around Siderar, a company that incorporates the legacy of the Argentine Propulsora Siderúrgica and Somisa. With the acquisition of Sidor in Venezuela at the end of 1997, the Techint Group became a protagonist in the Latin American market for flat and long steel products. In 1999, Roberto Rocca, in recognition of his pioneering vision, received the Willy Korf Award, the highest international accolade for entrepreneurs in the steel industry.

The engineering, construction and industrial engineering activities also witnessed a strong development under his leadership and led the Group into other areas: oil, with the creation of Tecpetrol in 1981; services, entering the telecommunications industry with Techtel, and health, with the Grupo Humanitas managing a network of hospitals. Today, 25 years after Roberto Rocca became the head of the Group, Techint is a global reality, with more than 50 thousand persons and a network of industrial plants and operating centers present in four continents.

His commitment to the industrial development of the countries where the Group operates and his profound awareness of the social responsibility of the company, have been at the center of his managerial practice. The investments in the Group's mills, the creation of a leading research and development organization, the attention paid to developing professional human resources educated in the best universities of the world, the establishment of transparent relations with investors, personnel and communities, the search for quality and excellence: all these facets of his management extended beyond the activities of the Techint Group and have been transferred as values to the whole community.

Married to Andreina Bassetti, he had three sons, Agostino - who died in April 2001 in an airplane accident in the Argentine Patagonia, Gianfelice and Paolo.