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The General Manager of a Port Harcourt-based diving and marine construction company,Tethys Plantgeria, Chief Marco Purgatorio is dead.
He died of Covid-19 while receiving treatment in an hospital in Italy. The General Manager of Danelec Limited, Engr. Chief Giandomenico Massari who made the announcement of Purgatorio’s death said that he was flown to Italy for treatment after it was discovered that he had contacted covid-19. He described his death as a great loss to the country and the company.
According to reports, Purgatorio, a diver by profession, came to Nigeria in 1990 and was the area Manager for Tethys Plantgeria Ltd. He had worked in Zaire, Mozambique, Iran and Kuwait, before he came to berth in the country’s underwater in the oil city of Port Harcourt.
He had to return to his native country, Italy before he came back to Nigeria. During his lifetime he helped to train a lot of indigenous divers in the country.
He encouraged the oil communities to express their grievances in non-violence ways. He believed in using diplomatic ways to find peaceful solutions to the crisis in the Niger Delta.No doubt he was made a Chief in one of the oil communities. He believed that violence more often than not does not solve problems, but rather aggravate them.
He encouraged the multinational corporations to help to develop the areas they were operating with infrastructural facilities, helping the people to acquire education and provide them with medical facilities.
He showed that diving encompassed all activities concerning offshore maintenance, including inspection and general maintenance of offshore equipment. Although he initially wanted to be an architect, he soon discovered that his love for diving surpassed that of Architecture and decided to pursue his career in diving. He rose to the post of the general manager of the company one of the best in the industry in Nigeria.
Right from youth, Purgatorio loved swimming, which had been a motivating factor in his becoming a diver. But it was at the Polytechnic Di Rossi, Vicanza, Italy where he specialized in Diving Engineering that he was taught the act. He had a Black Belt in judo. His hobbies included taekwando, training people in fitness, teaching people in the gym, reading and listening to music. His greatest achievement was the overall improvement and growth of Tethys.
He had worked as a teacher in the Institute of Art of Orvieto (TR), Institute of Art of Alghero (SS), and Institute of Art of Cittadelia (PD), teaching Graphic Designs and Professional Photography for Advertising.
Outside the academics, he had spent the rest of his career diving or supervising divers, as Diving Supervisor in Iran at Bandar Abbas Harbor for Condotte Acque SPA/Sinitalia Limited between 1983 and 1984. Site Manager at Shuaiba Oil Peer for Sumac Limited Diving Company in Kuwait from 1985 to 1986.
Similarly, he was Site Manager at Zaire’s Muanda Refinery Jetty for Eni/Agip Petroli SPA and variously as Site Manager, Commercial Manager and Area Manager in different locations in Italy for Tethys International Offshore Contractors. Tethys, a Latin word for goddess of the sea, was established in 1991 in partnership as an Italian company, but in 1992, it became a Nigerian company.