We are writing a book, as some of you already know.
A book dedicated to the passion for our work, dedicated to the good luck – which some of us have – to be able to spend our time doing that which we enjoy and for this reason living a life which is full of satisfaction and contentment.
You will have already understood – even if you haven’t read the presentation of this project– that we are certainly not talking about a novel or a work of fiction.
Quite the opposite: we are talking about something which comes from our days in the offices and laboratories, from the nights spent chasing up projects, from the time which, when our passion is working at full speed, doesn’t seem to exist.
But time does exist… and to remind us of the time in which all this started, we have a special expression here in BertO: Spirit of 74.
1974 is, in fact, the year in which everything started for us.
The book, playing on the number 74, wants to present 74 key words, 74 fundamental concepts for all those who, like us, want to “live happily their passion for their work”.
Everything started in 1974, with Fioravante and Carlo, two men and two fathers with the same surname, Berto.
Now maybe you will understand why the first word of this book is “Father”.
Because the person who is writing these lines is a son. Because the company has two fathers, the Berto brothers. Because everything, even a company, is created by a parent and is then passed down from generation to generation. And today we are here and we have the responsibility of preserving and increasing this incredible patrimony which our fathers handed down to us, that spirit of 74 whose strength never seems to fade but which gets stronger and stronger with every season.
The Berto brothers are the fathers of BertO today and, like all good fathers, they created something not only for themselves but for a family.
And because the company is tightly bound to society, to the life of this territory and to a world which is naturally larger and more open than a single family, the reference family of the BertO company has always been something much more than a “flesh and blood family”.
Territory, collaborators, even clients: the fathers of BertO were, and still are today, fathers who have known how to generate every type of value – economic, human, professional – to a sort of enlarged professional family.
For our book it would be interesting to ask ourselves this question: how can a father help us to live our passion for our work in the happiest way possible?
Certainly there could be many answers to this question but the writer has only limited experience. But it is this same limited experience which encourages and stimulates the desire to share this fortunate passion which has been able to flourish and express itself.
Therefore, from the point of view of the sons who have now become fathers, we believe that the delicate, precious role of a father – for all that which regards a professional passion- can be only one: great care together with the freedom to choose.
No son or daughter likes following orders but they all feel deep down inside the strength which is handed down to them in many forms.
All this throughout the many seasons of our lives, where every father and every child knows and understands the infinite succession of tension and closeness, where the look towards the future, the look which puts everything in the right prospective, is always that of the father.
A professional project needs the strength behind this forward-looking glance, whether it is a company or a simple idea.
We believe that being able to recognise all this can be a precious guide for us all.
