San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Cultural ambassador devoted to Italy, Democrats
Attorney Jeff Capaccio was already a bicultural facilitator, benefactor of Italian earthquake relief and a backer of Democratic candidates when he decided he wasn’t giving enough back to his community. So he formed the Silicon Valley Italian Executive Council, an advocacy group with 1,500 members and an international presence.
Upbeat and always on the move, Capaccio was born in San Francisco and raised in Burlingame. He was an Italophile to the extreme, evidenced by his athome preference for the Zeneize Italian dialect, one spoken in and around the city of Genoa.
And it was at home, in the house he’d gown up in and had moved back into to care for his 94yearold mother, that Capaccio was found dead on the evening of March 21. Presumed cause of death was a heart attack, said his longtime companion, Patricia Lusk of San Mateo. He was 62.
“Jeff connected people,” said Lusk, an executive at a startup. “His touch and outreach is so vast it is hard to even capture in words.”
One person his outreach touched is Chris Lehane, a San Francisco political consultant and adviser to Democratic candidates going back to Bill Clinton’s presidential campaign.
“Jeff was someone I could go to for advice and counsel both on Italian American issues and on tech issues,” Lehane said. “He helped support fundraisers and would introduce me to leaders.”
Janet Napolitano, head of Homeland Security in the Obama administration and later president of the University of
California, met Capaccio in English class when they were both undergraduates at Santa Clara University in the late 1970s. Capaccio put together groups to go out to dinner. He’d pick the place — reliably an Italian restaurant — and immediately upon arrival start speaking the language with the maitre’d and waiters.
“He was already fluent and showing off,” said Napolitano,
now a professor of public policy at UC Berkeley. “As long as I’ve known Jeff, he was always deep into his Italianness.”
Jeffrey Mario Capaccio was born Dec. 16, 1958. His father, Mario Capaccio, was from Calabria and had fought with the Italian resistance in World War II. His mother, Evelyn Neve, was born in San Francisco but grew up in Liguria. After the war, they immigrated to San Francisco, where they married.
Mario Capaccio rose to an executive position in the food industry, and the family moved to the hills of Burlingame, where Jeff attended Mills High School, class of 1977, and Santa Clara University, where he graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1981. He proceeded directly to law school at Santa Clara, earning his doctor of law in 1984. He went into private practice as an intellectual property attorney, ending up with the firm Carr & Ferrell.
Right away, Capaccio became active in the National Italian American Foundation based in Washington, D.C. In 1987, he was selected as a delegate to a conference put on by the Italian government in Rome for the purpose of promoting the Italian language and culture worldwide. Another delegate, John Calvelli, was from the Bronx. They bonded in being the youngest delegates by about 20 years, but that just meant better networking for Capaccio.
“Jeff always ‘knew a guy,’ as the expression goes,” said Calvelli, another delegate. “And it wasn’t B.S. Jeff actually knew the guy and he would take your call. He had an incredible ability to build strong and lasting relationships. He was a networker par excellence.”
To Capaccio, being Italian meant being a Democrat, and he and Calvelli formed Italian Americans for Clinton and Gore in 1992. They helped deliver the vote — and the campaign cash — by way of a PAC called the Italian American Democratic Leadership Council, which still exists 30 years later. Calvelli and Capaccio both served on the board for the 2020 presidential election with field operations in nine battleground states.
Since 1995, Capaccio served as de facto legal adviser to the Consul General of Italy in San Francisco, and after he formed the Silicon Valley Italian Executive Council in 2004, he became a conduit between Italian business interests and the tech world.
He could always find common ground. He and Italian Consul General Lorenzo Ortona were once in conversation when they figured out they shared a barber — in Rome — the closest bond Italian men can have, according to Ortona.
“He was a person who was larger than life and a fantastic friend,” Ortona said. “It is very hard to find an Italian American like Jeff who can switch from talking about American basketball in English to talking about Italian soccer in Italian. He was entrenched in both cultures, and that was very unique.”
Napolitano said that when she hit 50, she decided to celebrate in Rome and told Capaccio she’d buy lunch for anybody who showed up. Capaccio did his connecting and arranged for the hotel and the restaurant and a private Vatican tour.
Napolitano had to foot the bill for 92 people.
Not to be outdone, Capaccio drew 100 guests to his own 60th birthday, in late December 2018, at the Museo Diocesano in Genoa, for which he was an honorary ambassador. He made sure the guests were split 5050: half Italian and half American, including Napolitano and the mayor of Genoa. The mayor was among those who called Consul General Ortona to offer condolences upon hearing of Capaccio’s death. Also calling were the Italian ambassador in Washington, D.C., bank officials in Rome and Milan, and restaurant owners from across the Bay Area.
“There is a saying in Italian,
‘dolce vita,’ if you lived a sweet life,” Lehane said. “Jeff lived that. He was about good food, good drink and, most importantly, good friends and family.”
Capaccio’s marriage to Cynthia Brattesani ended in divorce. Survivors include a son, Mark Capaccio of Santa Clara; his mother, Evelyn Capaccio of Burlingame; and an extended family in Genoa.
A private burial ceremony will be held Wednesday, watchable via live stream. Gifts in his name may be made to Vari Italian Studies Initiative at Santa Clara University, Development Office, 500 El Camino Real, Santa Clara, CA 950531400.