Alumnus Profile: Brian Civatello, 2005

Growing up on a small family farm in Salem, Connecticut, Brian Civatello (ARE’05) has always known that he was interested in cheese. His parents raised beef and dairy cows and sold milk to a few customers; so small was their operation that they cooled milk cans in a nearby stream before they were sold.

“I was exposed to a variety of foods and cultures from a young age, and I’ve always been passionate about and interested in food”, he said. After hearing his grandfather talk about the small goat cheese business he ran Hamden in the 1930s, and learning how to make cheese with his father, he was hooked.

Pursuing a career in cheese was put on hold following his graduation from Glastonbury High School while Brian owned and operated an independent record label in Boston that produced electronic music. At 23, he knew he was ready for a change and decided to enroll at Uconn. Because his interests were so broad, choosing a specific major wasn’t easy. “I met with a variety of departments because what I wanted to do covered a little bit of all of the departments in the CANR”, he said. “I met with (former Resource Economics Department Head and Professor Emeritus) Emilio Pagoulatos and I knew from that meeting that the Resource Economics department would help me to do what I wanted to do”, he said.

“Emilio pointed me in an interesting direction that I hadn’t considered,” he said. “he guided me towards the need to understand the economics and business background of agriculture. I needed a better understanding of those topics before I could approach the topic of running my own business.”

Now working at Calabro Cheese Corporation in East Haven, Brian is the Lead Cheese Maker and Quality Control Manager for the 43 year old family owned and operated Italian cheese company. Brian says that he is constantly using the skills that he learned in his undergraduate Resource Economics coursework. “My job”, he said, “is to develop new specialty products and I often need to find a justification for, for example, making a new cheese that requires more labor to make. I use market research to find out where a specialty cheese would sell, and to find out if there is a market for the product. I use tasting panels, I do advertising and marketing.” Brian is even working to hedge the company’s milk and oil prices, using skills he learned in Dr. Lopez’s Marketing and Futures Trading course.

Brian’s ultimate goal is to own and operate a small cheese company in Connecticut. He has recently been awarded a large grant from the state of Connecticut that is bringing him closer to his dream of making northern Italian cheeses like Taleggio and Castelmagno. “The future of agriculture in Connecticut is value-added agriculture,” he says, “and any of the farms that want to produce need to gain the skills needed to create a product that local and high-end consumers will want to buy.” Brian credits his understanding of these concepts to the Resource Economics major. “Everything that I am working towards has let me use what I learned in Resource Economics,” he said. “Business plans, marketing plans, theories… I use them all.” With his solid background and natural talents, he is sure to be a success.