Anthony T. Rossi, Christian and Entrepreneur

Introduction A definition of a successful life is hard to come up with on your own. If you look up a successful life in a dictionary you can find the definition to be the accomplishment of one’s goals, the attainment of wealth, positions, and honors. The true definition is much more than that, there needs to be a spiritual aspect. I believe that a successful life is a fruitful life that points to Christ. In my opinion Mr. Anthony Rossi lived a very successful life, not only is he know as a great man and great business man. He is more importantly known as a great man of God.
Section 1: Character Traits Unfortunately, there are not many men that are like Mr. Anthony Rossi. He was a man of many strong character traits. Just one of these traits would be hard to find in a man, let alone all of them in one man. In fact, I believe that if more men possessed these traits there would be a smaller amount of passive men which would lead to stronger families and more God-honoring families. One of the traits that Mr. Rossi had was he was a Godly man. When he truly found out who Jesus was, finding out more or just being in a constant relationship with Jesus was his top priority. We see this a couple times in the book. First was when we read He got up every morning and spent time in God’s Word.1 This isn’t just something you do just because you just happened to wake up early. He made it part of his daily schedule, he set aside time specifically for growing in his relationship with Christ. A second time we see this is when a bible study with his friends becomes a must for him to go to.2 Mr. Rossi was a very busy man with a growing Tropicana business but he made sure he had time to go to this bible study to deepen his relationship with Christ. A second trait Mr. Rossi had was perseverance. We see many examples of this throughout his entire life story. One of the best examples of this comes with the Terrace Restaurant. Anthony Rossi soon found out that with his new restaurant he wast losing $1,000 a day. In about two to three months he had lost all of his savings. Anthony soon decided to sell his other restaurant, the Floridian, for $35,000 to shore up The Terrace. But, five months into The Terrace Mr. Rossi had only $3,000 in the bank, and had to pay $18,000 of debt by the beginning of the next year. Then one day in December he sold the Terrace for $65,000, $20,000 up front and the $10,000 a year until it was paid off.3 But this didn’t stop Anthony Rossi, the same week he sold The Terrace he started a business that packaged and shipped fruit boxes and that eventually led to Tropicana.4 One more trait that Mr. Rossi had was that he was a family man. Family was very important to him and we see that come through multiple times as we read his life story. After six months in America, Anthony had earned enough money to send some back home to his father in Sicily, since he came from a big family he knew there were many expenses. His dad appreciated it that his son would care about them that much.5 We see this again when he goes back home with the purpose of sharing the good new of Jesus with his family. He is so determined, he even says, “One day I know each one of them will discover what I have learned. I shall not give up until they do.” 6

Section 2: Mr. Rossi as a Business Man

It didn’t take Mr. Rossi long to open up his first business. In fact, we can see his entrepreneur side come out even before he came to America. After all of Anthony’s hard work on planting a vegetable garden he found that selling onions could become a profitable business. Anthony had a friend go down to the bridge with all the other farmers and sell the onions then Anthony gave his friend a percentage of the profits.7 As soon as Anthony got to America he already had a job as a mechanic, but that didn’t satisfy Mr. Rossi. He soon started a taxi business and continued to take bigger oppurtunies as they cam his way. This eventually led to the start of Tropicana. As a business man Mr. Rossi was always looking to grow his business and always looking for a new opportunity. One of the reasons Mr. Rossi’s fruit box business was so successful was because he was able to keep his prices lower then his competitions. He didn’t just stop there though, he continued to work to make his prices lower by cutting costs. At first the cost per box was about $2.50 and they sold for around $5.50. When the Rossis moved to Bradenton Mr. Rossi took advantage of an opportunity that came his way to buy a warehouse that was fully equipped for his business. The fruit boxes then were 35 cents and they had to pay 15 cents for pickup and delivery. that lowered the cost per box to 50 cents which lowered the price to $2.50.10 Sales of the boxes soon skyrocketed from the reduction in price. Anthony Rossi was also very active in how to solve problems with his companies. Anthony wanted a bottle decorator that could decorate 300 bottles per minute. He ended up having a dream with how it should be built and how it would work. He later sketched the circular decorator machine he imagined and worked with his engineer until the machine was complete and working perfectly.8 He was also very active in the designs to make The S.S. Tropicana and the Tropicana Train. So he could transport more of his product to meet the demand.

Conclusion Mr. Anthony Rossi’s life is a great example of how one can be successful and still be a man after God’s own heart. Personally, I enjoyed reading about Mr. Rossi’s perseverance. Through the hard times he had trust to know that God would always provide. He would never let anything deter him from what his ultimate goal was with any company he started. After reading this book I can truthfully say that Mr. Anthony T. Rossi lived a fruitful life that in the end all the success pointed up to Christ.

End Notes

1: Page 198
2: Page 111
3: Page 91-93
4: Page 95
5: Page 70
6: Page 115
7: Page 48-49
8: Page 141
10: Page 96-97
11: Page 111
12: Page 177