With clients such as Alenia, Agusta Westland, Selex, Piaggio Aerospace, and the geographically close Superjet International, CAB Bertola is a well-established player in the aerospace supply sector, founded in 1987 at the specific request of the Naval Workshops, who asked Rudi Bertola’s father and uncle for special work. Rudi Bertola is the current CEO. Bertola, who has lived in Mogliano for many years, explains: “The Naval Workshops were already customers of the previous company, founded in the 1960s, which dealt with equipment for aircraft maintenance. We then decided to diversify and expand the type of business.”
In the beginning, the company had only one customer, explains the executive, which was a factor that risked compromising the company’s future: in 1992, it was decided to no longer work exclusively but to try to expand the customer portfolio. Today, CAB generates 80% of its turnover in Italy and works with the most important players in the aerospace industry, even providing components for the module that supplied food to the space station where Italian astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti resides. The aerospace sector in Italy has little competition (in Veneto, there is only one competitor), as, while mechanics are a strong part of the Italian economy, the aerospace niche is not well-covered.
The company is still family-run (all executives are descendants of the two brothers who founded the maintenance company in the 1960s) and proud to be part of a market segment where maximum precision is required. The aerospace and aeronautical industries, as we know, allow no mistakes, and meeting the specifications of giants such as Airbus or Boeing is certainly a demonstration of competence and professionalism.
Since 2010, CAB has been carrying out the entire production cycle in-house to overcome the first signs of the crisis two years prior, so much so that the workforce has doubled, growing from 20 to 40 employees.
