Bob Chiarito Sr. grew up a working-class kid in Melrose Park. He sliced lunch meats at the Jewel deli and cleaned vehicles at Flash Car Wash before joining the Marine Corps.
After the military, he was driving near O’Hare Airport one day when he decided to stop in the offices of Kintetsu to see whether the Japanese freight company was hiring. He landed a job delivering documents.
Mr. Chiarito caught on to the logistics of moving goods around the globe. He got to know overseas companies and the products they wanted to export to the United States. And he studied carriers — air, ocean, rail and truck.
“He figured out which carriers had space available and negotiated good prices on pallets or pounds,” his wife Carlye said.
In 1979, he co-founded Expeditors, a freight company that oversaw shipping from starting point to customs. It grew to have more than 350 locations worldwide and 18,000 employees.
Mr. Chiarito, 71, died last month at his retirement home in Estero, Florida, of COVID-19 and pulmonary fibrosis, according to his family.
His gift for making friends helped him land or strengthen Expeditors’ ties with big accounts including Atari, Gap, Kmart, Montgomery Ward, Motorola, Nike, Payless and J.C. Penney.
“Bob helped put Expeditors on the map,” said Daniela Sitkowski, a former co-worker.
Mr. Chiarito remembered names and faces. He’d ask people about their lives and listen when they spoke.
“He had a very unique way of endearing himself by finding some commonalities — whether it was this person’s children, who were playing baseball, and his kids were playing baseball, or their food likings,” said Kevin Walsh, retired president and chief executive officer of Expeditors.
“He was a consummate salesperson,” Gene Alger, the company’s president of global services, said in an Expeditors oral history. “He had very, very good relationships with these customers. He would always point out to me, ‘Hey, Gene, They’re my friends.’ So you were either a friend of Expeditors and a friend of Bob Chiarito’s or,” as Mr. Chiarito put it, “you ‘were a j—--.’ ”
“From waiters and waitresses to people that worked in the local grocery store, he would connect,” his son Anthony said. “It was genuine interest and being a very good listener.”
It was a regular occurrence for Mr. Chiarito’s children to get stopped by people they didn’t know who’d say: “How’s your Dad? Tell him I say hi.”
He hired people based on their work ethic, not their alma mater. He helped Sitkowski — a former babysitter for the Chiarito family — get a job at Expeditors, setting her on the path to being a licensed customs broker.
Away from work, coaching youth baseball, “He made every kid believe they could do more than they thought they could,” his son Bob Chiarito, a Chicago writer, said in a eulogy. Some of his players weren’t fast or coordinated. A few had a physical disability. “But my dad took them on his team without hesitation, and he found a way to get the best out of those same kids who the other coaches didn’t want — and won anyway. “
He recalled a time his dad took charge when an elderly woman collapsed at a restaurant, and everyone else froze.
“My dad sprang into action — harnessing his Marine Corps voice to yell at the manager to call the paramedics while he comforted the lady with a cold towel,” he said. “He took action because someone needed help.”
Mr. Chiarito was the son of Anne and Tony Chiarito. His mother worked at factories including Alberto-Culver. His father, whose parents, born in Italy, christened him Amerigo for their new country, was an upholsterer for Pullman rail cars and a school janitor. Young Bob went to Proviso East High School in Maywood.
He liked playing baseball. His favorite player was Mickey Mantle. And he loved the sandwiches at Johnnie’s Beef at North and Harlem.
While visiting someone at Gottlieb Memorial Hospital, he noticed young Carlye Mazzei, a volunteer candy-striper.
Later, she walked in to the Jewel at Winston Plaza where he worked, looking for a pencil case.
“He showed me where the pencil case was, and he said, ‘Can I call you?’ ” she said. “I bought the pencil case, and I have it to this day.”
They went on dates at the old Como Inn restaurant, where they’d ask the pianist to play the dreamy bossa nova song, “Meditation.” They got married in 1971.
Their daughter Caira Barbanente said Mr. Chiarito also enjoyed music by Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin. His ringtone was Martin’s hit “Volare.” He liked vodka and soda on the rocks with a wedge of lemon. He made big Sunday dinners of pasta, meatballs and gravy. And he loved his goldendoodle Gracie.
Mr. Chiarito also is survived by his brother Joseph and seven grandchildren. Services have been held.
On his prayer cards, his wife printed one of Mr. Chiarito’s sayings: “We’re here for a good time, not a long time.”
