Philip Charles Armetta

Philip Charles Armetta, 86, passed away peacefully on Thursday August 24, 2017 after a long illness. Born in Brooklyn, New York he was the son of the late Vito and Carmela (Guaracci) Armetta. He was the beloved husband of Antonia (Papadopoulos) Armetta. Phil was a philanthropist who saw his contributions as a way to give others a chance to work their way to success, as he had. Phil was a very active long-time member and great supporter of the Middlesex Chamber of Commerce. To many, his passing represents an end of an era. He will be greatly missed by family, friends, and colleagues. In addition to his wife Toni, he is survived by 3 sons, Michael and his wife Chiara, Philip Jr. and his wife Mary, Robert and his wife Sandra, his daughter Elizabeth Armetta, 3 stepchildren Peter and Dean Papadopoulas and Anna and her husband Denny Muckle, 14 grandchildren, Carl(Rick), Michael, Carrie Ann, Anthony, April, Nicholas, Peter, Christopher, Alessandra, Kirstin, Brandon, Emily, Kristin and John. Philip is also survived by one great granddaughter, Kira Rose, 2 sisters Grace Fields and Josephine and her husband Nino Fioretta as well as several nieces and nephews. He was predeceased by his first wife Marta (Greiner) Armetta and his oldest son Carl Richard Armetta. The son of Italian immigrants, Phil grew up in modest circumstances. He began contributing to family finances at age 7 by selling shopping bags to grocery customers, working as a grocery clerk stocker, delivery boy and gas station attendant and firing the wood burning ovens of the famous Brooklyn bakery later featured in Cher's 1980's movie Moonstruck. At 17 he left high school to join the US Army, serving in the occupation forces in Germany for 4 years, where he met and married his East German bride, Martha, who bore him four sons and a daughter. For 13 years, after returning with his family to The States, he worked seven days a week and overtime as a truck driver and maintenance operator where, due to his displays of initiative, he was offered major promotion and a career position. But, having finally saved enough money to go into business for himself, he purchased a New York taxi medallion, then worked 16-hour days seven days a week until 1965 when he sold his medallion to buy a garbage truck and, with one partner began backyard trash collection in Norwalk, CT, arising at 3:00 AM daily and commuting 90 minutes each way every day for five years. Though Phil loved the pace of New York, after his successful venture in the trash collection business in Connecticut, he moved his family out of the City to raise his children where he saw greater opportunities for all of them. In 1970 Phil bought a small trash hauler, Dainty Rubbish (from Mr. Dainty, who lived on Lovely Street). For a time, Phil and his partner were employed by Sanitas, a large new regional company which soon failed spectacularly and to which they had sold Dainty. So, Phil extricated himself from the deal and re-launched Dainty, rebuilt old routes and built new ones. By the '80's Dainty resided in large modern quarters in the Middletown Industrial Park, with over 40 employees, serving commercial, industrial and residential customers throughout central Connecticut, and handing out fresh turkeys to customers and suppliers and local shelters and soup kitchens at Thanksgiving and holiday gifts in all seasons. Not satisfied with just hauling waste, Phil became fascinated with the concept of generating electricity from burning garbage and decided to go into the business and build his own plant. He enrolled in a formal course in combustion technology in Wisconsin where he learned the Three T's: Time, Temperature and Turbulence and thereafter kiddingly claimed a "PhD in Garbology". He was a man far ahead of his time in the garbage to energy industry beginning his research before the State of Connecticut had embraced the technology. Not much for time off or sleeping, over the next two decades, Phil learned and earned his way into a prominent position in the solid waste and power generation industries, finding able professionals, specialists and partners with whom to pursue his dreams, conceiving, siting, permitting, financing, and building waste to energy plants in Bristol and Lisbon, Connecticut (the latter owned by a Middletown run authority), a medical waste disposal company he operated at his headquarters site (now owned by a national company) and a large natural gas fueled power plant and water storage facility in Middletown, projects costing hundreds of millions of dollars and benefitting their host communities and customers in central and eastern Connecticut. Phil was an international traveler. His trips, almost all business included, beginning in the 80s, many visits to China to learn the latest garbage to energy combustion technology and investigate more efficient ways to incinerate waste. During the last 17 years he and Toni spent many happy years at home, in his adopted "home" town of Middletown, and on the sunny shores of Delray Beach, Florida as well as traveling abroad throughout Italy: Rome, Venice, and Tuscany; then on to Paris, the French Riviera, Greece, Germany, Amsterdam, and China. Visiting hours are Tuesday, August 29, 2017, from 3:00-7:00pm at D'Angelo Funeral Home, 22 South Main Street., Middletown, CT. Funeral Services will be held Wednesday morning, August 30, 2017 from the D'Angelo Funeral Home followed by a Mass of Christian Burial at 10 A.M. at St. Pius X Church located at 310 Westfield St., Middletown, CT. Burial will follow in St. Sebastian cemetery, Middlefield. Phil was committed to helping those in need. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to his favorite charity, Smile Train, PO Box, 96208, Washington, DC 20090-6208.