Frank Anthony Serio, who built up a bakery supply and flour distribution business into a large regional wholesale ingredients supplier, died Saturday at St. Joseph Medical Center. The 83-year-old Cockeysville resident died of complications from a fall at his home.
Born in Baltimore and raised near Edmondson Village, he attended St. Bernardine's Parochial School and was a 1942 Calvert Hall College High School graduate. He enrolled at Loyola College and, while on a blind date, he met his future wife, Rose Proietti, a College of Notre Dame of Maryland student. During World War II, he served in an Army infantry unit and saw action in the Philippines, Leyte Gulf and Okinawa.
After the war, he began pre-med studies at LaSalle College in Philadelphia but soon returned to Baltimore and accepted a job offered by his future father-in-law to work in his Seven Valley Flour Co.
In 1959, Mr. Serio bought the business and renamed it Frank A. Serio & Sons - even though his sons were then still young. He sold baking supplies from a warehouse adjacent to the Western Maryland Railway on Hillen Street in downtown Baltimore.
"He was a businessman, straightforward, very unpretentious," said Monsignor Thomas J. Donellan, his former pastor. "He worked 18-hour days and was a success, but only through hard work."
In 1961, he bought an early computer called a Monroe Monrobot. Using punch cards, it assisted with billing and inventories. He also bought out four other companies.
"He would take calculated business risks that made my hair stand on end," said his daughter, Rosemary Serio of Cumming, Ga.
He outgrew two city locations and moved his business to Jessup in 1977, by which time he employed 160 people. At one point he sold the business to a Swiss-based flour manufacturer, but bought it back a year later when he became dissatisfied with its operation.
In addition to flour, Mr. Serio sold sugar, nuts, raisins, shortenings, spices, dry yeast, cocoas, flavors and extracts. He used the motto "All the goods to bake the goods" and carried an inventory of 5,000 items.
In 1999, he sold the business, which then had $130 million in annual revenues, to a Dutch foods conglomerate.
In his free time, Mr. Serio collected model railroad trains and tended his 5-acre home site.
A Mass of Christian burial will be offered at 11 a.m. tomorrow at the Catholic Community of St. Francis Xavier Church, 13717 Cuba Road in Cockeysville, where he was a member.
In addition to his wife of nearly 61 years and daughter, survivors include three sons, Ron F. Serio of Millers in Carroll County, Francis X. Serio of San Diego and Robert L. Serio of Reno, Nev.; four sisters, Lucille DeGele of Philadelphia, Marie Salamone of Towson, Josephine Iampieri of Catonsville and Amelia Keiser of Cockeysville; and two grandchildren.
jacques.kelly@baltsun.com