OMNIA Industries, Inc. announces the untimely passing of the company’s beloved founder and Chairman, Alberto Romolo Comini, at the age of 76 on September 12. OMNIA, a leading manufacturer for over 50 years, crafts solid brass and stainless steel latchsets, mortise entry locksets, deadbolt locksets, narrow backset mortise locks and multipoint trim in over ninety knob and lever designs. OMNIA also offers a wide range of decorative cabinet hardware, solid brass hinges and architectural hardware, available through authorized showrooms throughout North America.
Born in 1940 in Imperia, Italy, the oldest of three children of Gesualdo and Iris Comini, Mr. Comini lived the years of his youth in Rome. In 1960, he boarded a boat to New York City to start his life as an American, first in Arlington, Massachusetts, then in New York City, and finally in Montclair, New Jersey, where he and his wife of 55 years have resided ever since.
In 1964, Mr. Comini founded OMNIA Industries, Inc., an architectural hardware manufacturer which, due to the attention and commitment of its owner, became a top brand in the door hardware industry. Its expansion required a move in 1985 from Montclair to OMNIA’s headquarters located today in Cedar Grove, New Jersey. It remains one of the only family owned and operated manufacturers in the industry, now helmed by son Alexander G. Comini, President, and daughter Denyse Comini Becker, Executive Vice President.
Instinctively curious, energetic and optimistic, Mr. Comini pursued a myriad of interests throughout his lifetime. An out-sized soccer fan, he and his brother Piero, a true master of the sport, organized Montclair’s first youth soccer team, the Montclair Stars; now known as Montclair United. He was a long-standing and active member of the Italy America Chamber of Commerce, serving as President for multiple terms. He considered the arts essential to the human experience, and served on the Board of the New School for the Arts, assuming the title President, completing the portrait of a true Renaissance man.
After hours, Mr. Comini loved dinners with friends and family, good food and wines, conversations big and small, classical music, jazz, any museum. His passions were intensely felt. Gardening, tennis, opera, reading - they took his interest and piqued his imagination. With age, there were variations. The focus of his attention, the pull on his heart strings was any or all of the seven grandchildren.
There is a beach house in Montauk where the Comini family has gathered for almost 30 years, and it was there that Alberto and his wife Kathleen were regularly found, spending afternoons on the beach playing their annual chess tournaments until the sun had set.
