Joseph Capecci

Joseph Raymond Capecci II was born February 5, 1933 to Joseph Capecci, an automobile race car mechanic, and Mary Apostoli, a homemaker. Joseph Jr., was the oldest of three children.
He graduated with honors from the prestigious Bronx High School of Science at 17 and enrolled as an audit student in the Department of Chemistry at Long Island University in 1950.
At 18, his college was interrupted by his draft into the United States Army. He completed basic training at Fort Dix, New Jersey in April 1951 and was transferred to the Los Alamos Labs and White Sands, New Mexico(WMSR) to work in the US nuclear weapons development program. There he trained under Enrico Fermi, J. Robert Oppenheimer, Richard Feynman, Norris Bradbury and John H. Manley. During his tenure with the US Army Corps of Engineers he was also retained by the US Air Force to work on joint projects at the Groom Air Base in Nevada now referred to as, “Area 51”. He applied for and received not less than 5 US patents while in the Army including those for radio active isotope conversion, heavy water separation and the treatment disposal of radioactive bi-products. He was honorably discharged in December 1953 and returned to LIU to complete his BS in Chemistry. He received his degree in 1957. In 1958 he worked on the first successful large scale desalinization plant located in Saudi Arabia.
After the war, Capecci continued on with his academic endeavors and achievements working for large water treatment corporations like Graver Water Conditioning, S. Blackman and US Tank Car where he continued to lead the scientific community in the fledgling industry of water waste treatment. During this time Capecci drafted several processes that today are still the industry standards in solid waste management.
In January 1959, he was nominated by the Joint Chiefs of Staff as a special consultant to NASA, where he worked in a development role both at mission control in Houston and at the National labs in Washington DC working on both the capsule re-entry and moon car design programs. In the late 1950s he also was consulting with both JPL in CA and Huntsville Al Army Rocket Teams to develop process to deal with waste treatment associated with Explorer 1 and what would become the space program and NASA. He did not work or consult for the Navy Project Vangard Rocket Program which did launch the oldest satellite still in orbit, but they did utilize his ionization process and perhaps improved it.
He married Beatriz Fernandez-Metzger in April 1965 and had one child Michael born May 1966.
In August 1961 he enrolled in the Columbia University School of Architecture in New York City where he trained under Philip Johnson, Walter Gropius and Robert AM Stern. However, it is his later collaborative efforts with Robert Venturi, Cesar Pelli and later Edward Larrabee Barnes in the development of the Purchase College NY site master plan, transforming what was a country estate into a “city within a city” in 1967. In 1973 he received his Masters of Architecture from the graduate school of Architecture, Planning and Preservation at Columbia attending the evening division. He stayed on at Purchase as lead development architect for the entire SUNY system and Dir. of Facilities until 1983. Through the 1970’s and 1980’s he continued to develop a successful architectural practice in Litchfield County, CT and Westchester County NY.
In 1985, he entered academia with the City University of New York and held several positions within that university system. Eventually retiring as Dean of Administration, John Jay College with administrative responsibility and directive responsibility for hundreds of employees within the CCNY system at various campuses. He retired in 1997.
He has been a senior member of the New York State Republican Party and was an associate and supporter of Rudolph Giuliani's successful bids for mayor of NYC in 1994 and 1998. He has sat on the board of several "Fortune 500" companies located in Westchester County and is a supporter of the Bronx Zoo, Metropolitan Opera and the New York Philharmonic.

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