Member Spotlight - Carlo Capua

Carlo Capua
Past Rotary President And Deputy Chief of Staff to Mayor Mattie Parker and the Fort Worth City CounciL

Past President Carlo Capua is the Deputy Chief of Staff to Mayor Mattie Parker and the Fort Worth City Council. He defines his role as helping support the mayor’s initiatives and working on “new and innovative things that we haven’t done before.”

Capua said his experience as an entrepreneur and a business owner brings a different way of thinking to City Hall. “Above everything else, I try and connect different people in different programs,” he said. “Rotary is at the center of that because there are so many great programs within Rotary, not just in Fort Worth, but around the world that we’re involved in.”

Capua’s Rotary journey began in 2009, when long-time Rotarian Steve Dutton sponsored him for membership. Even though Dutton now lives in Miami, Florida, where he is a Rotarian, Capua said they maintain a close connection.
After living abroad in Nagaoka, Japan for four years and Mexico for three, Capua said he wasn’t sure how to reengage in the city. He had just started his first business and found that coming to Rotary meetings helped him get “plugged in” to the community.

“It was like a shortcut back into the main artery of Fort Worth,” he said. “You could really put your finger on the pulse of Fort Worth by being involved in Rotary, and that was a pathway to super-fast engagement and meeting all the people who are doing really great things here.”

Along with Dutton, Capua cited two other Rotarians who impacted his life.
“I think two of my Rotary mentors have been Past President Fernando Costa, who is now a colleague working with me in the city, as well as former mayor and Past President Kenneth Barr. Really, they both have become like fathers to me. They're the most kind and humble servant leaders, they’re just two of the most solid men that I've ever met,” Capua said.

Since joining Rotary, Capua’s experiences, as a member and club president, include volunteering for local nonprofits, working on international projects, and representing the Fort Worth club at national and international Rotary events and conferences. Capua said his favorite experience was participating in a Rotary initiative five years ago to raise money to buy 200+ wheelchairs for an exchange in Eswatini, a small country in Southern Africa.

“We actually gave the wheelchairs out in a very remote village and saw people who had spent their lives literally living on the floor, now in wheelchairs and able to get around. That has been the most amazing and impactful experience,” Capua said.
 
 
[Caption for above:] Wheelchair donation ceremony with our Rotarians, local village elders and city officials. Photo provided by Carlo Capua.
 
Capua said there’s a direct relationship between what one gives and what one gets out of the club. “It makes it so that you want to really stay involved and stay connected,” he said. “There’s something really fulfilling about doing great work with really good people who are all here because they love the city,” he said.
 
Capua acknowledged the importance of Rotary’s Four-Way Test, which he said he applies to his personal, work, and community life. He said that if everyone lived by The Four-Way Test, the city and the community look different.
 
“That Four-Way Test is an easy way to bring people together regardless of what color your skin is, what language you speak, or how much money you have. In today’s world, we need to search for more things that can unite us.”