Historian. Photographer. Museum curator. Educator. Author. Poet. Businessman. Philosopher. If “Renaissance Man” springs to mind upon hearing this list ascribed to Alessandro Baccari, Jr., 82, he would tell you it’s all because of his father and namesake. Al’s father, recognized nationally for his considerable creative talents, hosted many notable figures of the day at the family’s San Francisco home. Al, Sr., would regularly ask his famous guests, such as Eugene O’Neill and Paul Robeson, “Would you be the father of my son for a day?” This steady stream of surrogate fathers helped Al, Jr., learn at a very young age the art of listening and communicating and it exposed him to many professions and businesses.

Al is passionate about San Francisco history. He is the author of San Francisco’s Fisherman’s Wharf (2006) and Saints Peter and Paul Church: The Chronicles of “The Italian Cathedral” of the West, 1884–1984 (1985). He is also the curator/director of the North Beach Museum, located at 1435 Stockton Street above the US Bank offices, and he has his own extensive collection of historical photos and documents.

Al’s photographs have been published in numerous art books and shown at museums and galleries throughout the world. In 2002, he received the American Society of Photographers International Award.

Al’s ties with Fisherman’s Wharf run deep. He helped wage a successful campaign to protect Fisherman's Wharf as a historical district. He’s a founder of the Historical Society of Fisherman’s Wharf and a former executive secretary of the Fisherman’s Wharf Association.

Joseph Brucia & Mary Brucia Bonura

In 1922, Giuseppe Brucia (1883–1974) was one of 10 Italian American businessmen who helped found the San Francisco Opera by providing Maestro Gaetano Merola with the financing for the Company's first season. Giuseppe Brucia was so devoted to the idea of a world-class opera company in San Francisco that, separate from his own contribution, it was he who signed the personal guarantee that A.P. Giannini required for the loan to Maestro Merola from the Bank of Italy. Without Giuseppe Brucia's additional commitment, the San Francisco Opera, one of the City's greatest cultural treasures, may not have existed.

Giuseppe Brucia continued to enjoy and support the San Francisco Opera thoughout his life, while being actively engaged in the real estate and food businesses in San Francisco. In 1910, he started his own business, pioneering the selling of California wines to the East Coast. In 1918, he purchased the El Quito ranch in Saratoga, the oldest commercial olive ranch in California. In 1937, he supplied 250 olive trees from the El Quito to line the streets of Treasure Island for the 1939 Golden Gate International Exposition. Many of these olive trees can still be seen today beautifying Treasure Island.

Over the years, Joseph Brucia and Mary Brucia Bonura, Giuseppe's son and daughter, perpetuated their father Giuseppe's legacy through their own generous gifts to the opera. Before Joseph died in 2007, he and his wife, Frances, and Mary Brucia Bonura sponsored the Opera's production of Madame Butterfly, as well as the inaugural free public simulcast of the May 27, 2006 opening night performance to over 8,000 people in Civic Center Plaza. In additional to her own contributions over the years, Mary Bonura has been an active fundraising volunteer for the Opera, continuing to inspire countless patrons to join her support by sharing the story of her family's longstanding commitment to the art form.

A prominent voice of the wide-open poetry movement that began in the 1950s, Lawrence Ferlinghetti has written poetry, translation, fiction, theater, art criticism, film narration, and essays. Often concerned with politics and social issues, Ferlinghetti’s poetry countered the literary elite’s definition of art and the artist’s role in the world.

Ferlinghetti was born in Yonkers, New York, in 1919. After receiving a Master’s degree from Columbia University in 1947 and a Doctorate de l’Université de Paris (Sorbonne) in 1950, he headed west, and in 1953, with Peter D. Martin, he founded City Lights Bookstore, the first all-paperbound bookshop in the U.S.

For more than half a century, the bookstore has served as a meeting place for writers, artists, and intellectuals. Ferlinghetti’s publication of Allen Ginsberg’s Howl & Other Poems in 1956 led to Ferlinghetti’s arrest on obscenity charges, and the trial that followed drew national attention to San Francisco’s Beat movement writers. (He was overwhelmingly supported by prestigious literary and academic figures, and was acquitted.)

Ferlinghetti’s paintings have been shown at various galleries around the world. In San Francisco, his art works can regularly be seen at the George Krevsky Gallery at 77 Geary Street [link]. His A Coney Island of the Mind continues to be the most popular poetry book in the U.S. with nearly one million copies in print.

Ferlinghetti was named San Francisco’s Poet Laureate in August 1998, and in 2003 he was awarded the Robert Frost Memorial Medal and the Author’s Guild Lifetime Achievement Award.

Anne Giannini McWilliams &
Virginia Giannini Hammerness

Amadeo Peter Giannini (1870–1949) pioneered banking services for the masses in the United States. He started in business as a produce broker in San Francisco. He was extremely successful in that business and sold his interest to his employees and retired at the age of 31. He became a director of the Columbus Savings & Loan in which his father-in-law owned an interest. At the time, banks were run for the benefit of the wealthy and well-connected. Giannini, however, saw opportunity in serving the financial needs of the growing immigrant population. At loggerheads with the other directors over his idea, he quit the board in frustration and decided to start his own bank. He opened the tiny Bank of Italy in the North Beach section of San Francisco to serve the needs of “the little fellow”. The bank was housed in a converted saloon directly across the street from the Columbus Savings & Loan. Giannini believed in branch banking as a way to stabilize banks during difficult times as well as expand the capital base. He bought banks throughout California and eventually had over five hundred branches throughout the state. By then, the bank was the largest in the world and it had changed its name to Bank of America.

Giannini died at his home in San Mateo, CA where he lived most of his life. Time magazine named him one of the “Builders and Titans of the Twentieth Century”. He also founded Transamerica Corporation as a holding company for his other financial enterprises. Bank of America today is still one of the largest banks in the world. October 17, 2004 marked the 100th anniversary of Giannini’s creation. In 2010, Giannini was installed in the California Hall of Fame which commemorates the contributions of Californians to the state and nation.

Deanna Paoli Gumina, PhD, BCET, is a San Francisco educator, psychologist, historian, and writer. In addition to A Woman of Certain Importance: A Biography of Kathleen Norris (2004), and Old St. Mary’s: Crossroads of the World (1978), Dr. Gumina is also the author of The Italians of San Francisco 1850–1930 (1977), a noteworthy bilingual history that was awarded the Medaglia d’Oro by the Italian government in 1995. The book presents the point of view of the Italian immigrants who migrated to California from the time of the Gold Rush up through the start of the Great Depression and examines the economic and social aspects of their migratory experience and settlement in San Francisco during those decades.

In addition to her historical research and writings, Dr. Gumina has devoted much of her career to the field of education and psychology. A former secondary school teacher, she graduated from the California School of Professional Psychology (now Alliant University) in 1995 with a degree in psychology and joined the staff of St. Elizabeth School in San Francisco, where she expanded the special education program for kindergarten through 8th-grade students. She also served as the upper form learning specialist at Stuart Hall for Boys. In 1999, Dr. Gumina became the director of admissions at Sterne School, an academic program for 6th through 12th graders diagnosed with specific learning disabilities.

Currently, Dr. Gumina is a practicing psychologist in San Francisco specializing in the assessment of children and adults dealing with learning and developmental difficulties.

Father John Lo Schiavo, S.J. is a native San Franciscan, born on February 25, 1925. His Parents Joseph and Anne Lo Schiavo, also had two daughters, Lina and Josephine. He graduated from Star of the Sea Grammar School and St. Ignatius College Preparatory before entering the Society of Jesus in 1942. He received his BA. and Masters Degrees in Philosophy from Gonzaga University and his S.T.L. in Theology from Alma College.

Fr. Lo Schiavo is presently the Chancellor of USF. He was President of the University from January of 1977 to June 1991. He has served the University in other capacities over the years: as a trustee from 1964 to 1968 and again from 1969 to 1991, and as Chairman of the board of trustees from 1970 to 1973; as Vice President for Student Affairs from 1966 to 1968 and Dean of Students from 1962 to 1966. He also taught Philosophy from 1950 to 1952, and again in 1956–57. In 1961–62 he taught Theology.

During his years as President Fr. Lo Schiavo successfully completed two capital campaigns. The first enabled the university to purchase the Lone Mountain campus, formerly the San Francisco College for Women. The second made it possible to carry out the university’s first major building project on the campus since the 1960s with the construction of the Koret Health and Recreation Center. During his presidency the University endowment increased tenfold from $4,500,000 to $45,000,000. The College of Professional Studies and the Center for the Pacific Rim were established and new programs were instituted in the schools of business, law and nursing.

Father has also been an administrator on the secondary level: as President of Bellarmine College Preparatory from 1968 to 1975, and as Vice Principal at Brophy College Preparatory from 1958 to 1961. During all these years he has served on boards of directors on the state and national level and presently serves on the board of trustees of Kalmanowitz Charitable Foundation. In 1994 he served on the Task Force for the Commission on Archdiocesan Pastoral Planning.

Father Lo Schiavo has received honorary doctoral degrees from Hanyang University in Seoul Koreaand the University of San Francisco. He was declared Man of the Year by San Francisco Forward in 1979, and by Il Cenacolo in 1989. He received the Torch of Liberty Award from the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith, and was honored by the United American Hebrew Congregations with the Unity Medal Award. In 2000 he received the Koret Foundation prize for his contributions to higher education.

Fr. Lo Schiavo is an avid golfer and swims regularly in the Koret Health and Recreation Center.

Business Manager Larry Mazzola is truly a native son of Local 38. His father Joe Mazzola was one of the premier labor leaders in San Francisco history, and led Local 38 to a position of prominence among local unions throughout the country. Larry has continued and expanded on that proud tradition.

Shortly after graduating from the Local 38 apprentice program in 1965, Larry was named Assistant Apprentice Coordinator, then Organizer, then Business Agent, and finally Assistant to the Business Manager.

Larry Mazzola was named Business Manager following the untimely death of his father in 1989, and has since won five elections, four on white ballots (no opposition). Larry is President of the San Francisco Building Trades Council, a Vice President of the San Francisco Central Labor Council, U.A. Vice President for the western states, and is the President of the San Francisco Airport Commission.

A 26-year member of the Recology management team, Mike was recruited to be the Chief Financial Officer of Recology Sunset Scavenger’s parent company in 1983. Following a 1987 merger with Norcal Waste Systems, Inc., he assumed the same role for the combined organizations until his election as President & Chief Executive Officer in 1991.

Reflecting both his individual interests and his belief in good corporate citizenship, Mike has served on the boards of many of Northern California’s most effective community organizations, including the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce and the San Francisco 49ers Foundation. Other board service has included the San Francisco AIDS Foundation (1994–1999) where he was Finance Committee Chair (1995–1999), South Bayshore Community Development Corporation (1998–1999), and the Bay Area Sports Organizing Committee (2001–2003). In 2008, Mike was honored as the city’s “sustainability leader” in the San Francisco Business Times’ annual celebration of San Francisco’s most admired CEOs.