Mauro Saviola

Mauro Saviola gets to know the wood since his childhood, to appreciate and shape it by working in the workshop of his ebonist father, Alfredo, where he was a carpenter apprentice already at the age of 11, in 1949. After the war, deep poverty pushes everyone to make a living, and Saviola workshop strives to produce broom handles. After the arrival of the vacuum cleaner the Saviolas must go back to the wood and coal trade for heating. Once again progress plays a trick on the small company when wood-burning stoves are replaced by butane gas, which heat the homes, eliminating the demand for firewood.

Mauro Saviola begins producing the first panels made with poplar branches, and he immediately gains remarkable success. The only problems are related to the urea glue, which is supplied by the oil company executive Nino Rovelli from Montecatini and Sir, chemical giants who raise the prices. After a similar experience with Austria, which also sniffs the deal, in 1968 Saviola builts a plant in Viadana to independently obtain the adhesive and in 1973 he opens Sadepan Chimica, the first Italian manufacturer of wood glues with low content of formaldehyde. The chemical center will experience fast development over the years, becoming the first national supplier of urea and melamine resins. The last of the chemical plants was inaugurated in December 2003 in Genk, Belgium.

In the meantime, technologies are evolving, research continues tirelessly, profits increase and we gradually arrive to today's reality: an industrial system consisting of 20 companies spread across Lombardy, Veneto, Tuscany and Marche, with plants also in Argentina, Belgium, Germany and over 1500 employees. Employees who have always been called "collaborators", given the honest trustworthy relationship that has developed with them over time.