Nicholas Anthony Travaglini

Nicholas Anthony Travaglini of Chester Springs Nicholas Anthony Travaglini, born Dec. 6, 1929, died Dec. 7, 2012, just past midnight following his eighty-third birthday after struggling valiantly for three days following a massive heart attack. Son of a barber and member of an extensive Italian family in and around Philadelphia, Nick was born in the front bedroom of his parent's house on Lancaster Avenue in Bryn Mawr, where his sister Betty Travaglini lived her entire life until she passed in 2006. A graduate of Lower Merion High School, Villanova University, and later New York University, he also served as a pilot in the U.S. Air Force from 1952-1957, flying C-119's; retiring from the reserves in 1989 with the rank of Major. Nick worked in sales for American Airlines, then Sylvania Electric; eventually switching to executive recruitment for Spencer Stuart, then Lybrand, Ross Brothers & Montgomery, before founding his own executive search firm Travaglini Associates in 1972. As sole proprietor, he brought significant executives to top level aeronautical and military supply companies, as well as companies in a broad range of industries, until retiring in the late 1990's. In the late 1960's, Nick purchased a property in southeastern Pennsylvania, converting the nineteenth century barn into a singularly unique home, completing much of the work himself over the decades, and in fact continuing to work on it, unceasingly and untiringly, until the very end. A committed world traveler, lover of food and family, voracious reader of - among a great many other things - five newspapers daily, an endless source of advice for friends and family alike: Nick was the living embodiment of a self-reliant, freethinking, fully independent individual. He was as adept at carpentry, plumbing and electrical work as he was at political discourse, finance, and engagement with the world and everyone with whom he came into contact. Nick leaves behind his wife of 43 years Isabelle, his son Timothy and daughter Mary. A memorial service will be held at 11 a.m. this Saturday, Dec. 15 at St. Thomas More Church, 2101 Pottstown Pike, Pottstown. As Nick was an active proponent of the preservation of land in West Vincent Township, the family requests that in lieu of flowers, memorial contributions be made to the French and Pickering Creeks Conservation Trust, 511 Kimberton Road, Phoenixville, PA, 19460.