Team = Happiness & Longevity

 Marti's Italian side of the family name comes from St. Agata Irpina next to Solofra, Italy in the Avellino (AV) district of Campania.  His Italian surname is Moniello (Manganiello, Mongillo, Mongiel).  The area is famed for Spaghetti Puttanesca (Spaghetti with a whore's sauce), macaroni (served as the first macaroni and cheese by Thomas Jefferson inside the white house after buying a macaroni press from Naples), tomatoes (especially the Pomodoro San Marzano from San Marzano Sul Sarno) and pizza.  

Also famed in the region is mozzarella, along with basil, garlic, peppers, broccoli rabe, olive, and citrus trees. This is the region of Naples (where pizza is from), the Isle of Capri, Pompei, and Mount Vesuvius! 

He was raised in the Colonial City, and the previous Capitol of America, Philadelphia, visiting places like the Liberty Bell and Constitution Hall on children's school trips. He also grew up on the Jersey Shore and later lived in New York.  

In winter it was the stories of Washington on the Delaware, or at Valley Forge. 

The family became famed for the Roma Ice Cream Cone Factory of Philadelphia and Marti's father worked inside the factory assembling the Italian invention of 1896, ice cream cones, into metal tins.  

His cousins are a Senator in the Italian congress of Columba Mongiello (our staunch advocate of Product of Italy law, the Mongiello Law in the European Union), and Joe Manganiello of Hollywood. 

 Marti is also part of the Schafer (Schaefer, Schafer, Schaffer, Schafferre, Schafer, Schäfer, Schäffer, Schaeffers, Schefer, Schaffner, Scheffer, Shaeffer, Shaefer, Sheafferto) family from the Mainz region of Germany, first settling in Virginia and Carolus (Carolina) in 1709.  It is derived from the Middle High German term schafferre, which — in that language — referred to the manager or steward of a household. The earliest are:

• Hans Georg Schafer came to Carolina or Pennsylvania in 1709.

• Enners Schafer, landed in PA in 1709.

• Hans Schafer, arrived in America in 1709.

• Jacob Schafer came to Philadelphia in 1719.

• Hans Peter Schafer to Philadelphia in 1732.

• Hans Peter Schafer, in Pennsylvania in 1732.

• Fritz Schafer, in Pennsylvania in 1749.

• Geo Jacob Schafer, in Pennsylvania in 1749.

• Geo Schafer, arrived in Pennsylvania in 1749.

• Hans Baltazer Schafer, in PA in 1749.

The Schafer's served in the NC Continental Line during the revolutionary war as John and Henry Shaffer. 

In the United States, you know of the family for building and creating South of the Border (by Alan Schafer), as donors to PBS Masterpiece Theater, the Masterpiece Trust and Downton Abbey via The Michael and Helen Schaffer Foundation, the Westglow Resort with Bonnie and Jamie Schaefer, and the Schaefer Center of Appalachian State University. 

• First Lieutenant Dwite H. Schaffner and Sergeant Joseph Schaefer who both received the Medal of Honor for his actions during World War I and II.

• Natalie Shafer (1900-1991) American actress, best known as Mrs. Thurston Howell, III on Gilligan's Island (1964-67).

• Gustav Schäfer (1906-1991) German rower who won gold in the 1936 Olympics.

• Karl Schäfer (1909-1976) Austrian figure skater who won the gold medals at the 1932  and the 1936 Winter Olympics.

•  Edward Thomas Schafer is an American businessman and politician who was the 30th governor of North Dakota &  served as the US Secretary of Agriculture, appointed by President George W. Bush. 

• Hans-Bernd Schäfer (b.1943) German economist and a pioneer in the field of law and economics at Georgetown Law.

Additional family information, biographies, and trees can be found here. The Schafer Gallery in America features colonial paintings and the Schafer museum in Germany is known worldwide.

He is also part English, Scottish, American Indian, Ashkenazi Jewish, and Irish with his DNA reporting most family members of the McConnell family (often known as McDonnell.  A portion of his DNA is also Asian (American Indian) from Asia, the Ural Mountains region, and Ashkenazi Jewish.   

The additional family found under DNA analysis for Marti - are Wylie, Bruce, Mcintosh, McConnell, and Hamrick of the region (Lake Wylie). Some of them predominately live in the county seat region of York, SC.  In the very early 1700s when Marti's family moved to the Carolina Territory, it was controlled under the Carolina Charter of 1663 and the Lord's Proprietors. Later, in Tryon County, the local seat was what is now in the state of South Carolina, and called York, SC.  

We have been tremendous Outlander fans as both Marti and Stormy are part English, Irish, and Scottish. We've hosted numerous Outlander events and dinners along with years of bagpipes, harps, and wee dram tastings of all sorts of Scottish whiskey. Marti owns two plots of land in Scotland, one at the castle by Loch Lomond and another provided by Laiphroig Whiskey (as a prize in the drum holder of a bottle) - both the relative size of your foot!

Surprisingly, in later years the University of Edinburgh would host his relative as a professor and inventor, Sir Edward Albert Sharpey-Schafer, originally name Edward Albert Schäfer. He would pass away in Scotland, despite being born near London. He received many awards and invented the Schafer Method of Life-Saving Resuscitation that saved lives worldwide until more advanced methods like CPR came into use.

 Marti entered the workforce at the urging of a strong Father and Mother who honored hard work. He was fourteen and riding his ten-speed six miles to work as a dishwasher at Fisher's Diner of Beach Haven - later turned catering prep. cook - turned working at a pizza parlor for Frank Panzone - learning all forms of sandwiches, pizza, and calzones. 

Next, he continued to upgrade and began cooking meats, pancakes, and egg dishes at the famed Pampered Pancake House on Long Beach Island, NJ and apprenticed under three chef graduates (including the noted Meatloaf) of the Culinary Institute of America (CIA) led by the talented Lance and Luciano Bachia of Luciano's North Italian Cuisine and The Pampered Pancake House on Long Beach Island, NJ. 

Regrettably, he was a complete failure and laughing stock at playing basketball. 

Marti is a direct blood-line descendant of Petrach. His DNA was matched after exhumation of the grave and body. 

Francesco Petrarca (1304 – 1374 via Britannica), is the famed Italian scholar and poet in Renaissance Italy, who was one of the earliest humanists. His rediscovery of Cicero's letters is often credited with initiating the 14th-century Renaissance. 

Petrarch is often considered the founder of Humanism. In the 16th century, Pietro Bembo created the model for the modern Italian language based on Petrarch's works, as well as those of Giovanni Boccaccio, and, to a lesser extent, Dante Alighieri. Petrarch was endorsed as a model for Italian style by the Accademia della Crusca.

Petrarch's sonnets were admired and imitated throughout Europe during the Renaissance and became a model for lyrical poetry. William Shakespeare came to love the sonnet. 

He is also known for being the first to develop the concept of the "Dark Ages. Marti's writings, statements, and poems have also been featured in hundreds of newspapers, books, television, and newspapers across the world.

He has written Petrarchan sonnet's for his wife, Stormy, and translated them on scrolls in Greek, Italian, and Latin.

He volunteered for submarine duty on dozens of hunter-killer submarines after boot camp, drill, and Honor Guard Company duty & primary cooks school in San Diego, California. 

Off next to the nuclear submarine school (called BESS) - where he was taught the advanced understanding of nuclear power plants, hydraulics, electricity, navigation, buoyancy, firefighting, salinity, air reducers, weaponry, and survival inside the world's oceans in human-made machines. Here he learned and perfected driving and diving a multi-billion dollar machine under the seas. 

Over the next ten years, he cooked, handled frozen lines by bare hand from outboard locker off of Norway in the dry hail, practiced fire-fighting and nuclear accident drills, served crews and officers in the wardroom while visiting other countries and studied cuisines. His various boat activities in the top-secret cold war helped America win. 

A large portion of Marti's crew activities was recently featured in a full-length film, called Hunter-Killer, produced with the authorized assistance of several Department of Defense reviewers and Navy consultants.  It's an action thriller film directed by Donovan Marsh, written by Arne Schmidt and Jamie Moss, and based on the novel Firing Point by Don Keith and George Wallace. The film stars Gerard Butler, Gary Oldman, Michael Nyqvist (in one of his final film roles), Common, Linda Cardellini, and Toby Stephens, and follows a submarine crew and a group of Navy SEALs who rescue the captured Russian President from a coup. The film is considered by some to be outrageous or childish as impossible to have occurred and many of the operations in the movie are outlandish fantasy. 

"It's the type of creative hype and fiction BS that immature writers, and Admirals who never had any action, come up with - until they actually get some time on the pond and inside the oceans of the world like many of us have. Spend over eight years on sea duty and another six overseas living at NATO, in Asia, and in Europe and hope to God that you get to be part of something only the CIA has on file. Then you'll have new ideas of what to write about." Marti Mongiello

(Pictured one of Marti's six boats stationed on - the USS Asheville (SSN 758)). 

Principal photography on the film was in London and in Bulgaria. Interior sets of a Virginia-class Hunter Killer submarine were built at Ealing Studios, using blueprints approved by the U.S. Navy, with the spaces expanded to allow freer camera movement. 

The sets were mounted on a gimbal to simulate the movement of the sea. Ealing also hosted a Pentagon set from where U.S. military personnel track the submarine action.

An exterior set of the main Hunter Killer submarine was built in Pinewood Studios’ 806,000-gallon exterior water tank, while underwater scenes were shot using a separate water tank at Warner Bros. Studios, Leavesden, also just outside London. 

Interiors of the Russian base were built as sets at Nu Boyana Film Studios in the Bulgarian capital, Sofia.

"We waited a long time to see this film made and for a lot of reasons, we will never confirm nor deny certain items as bubbleheads. And that includes a lot of places we went and things we did." Marti Mongiello

 "A genius IQ testing result qualified him for cryptologic work or the nuclear field, yet he followed his heart to work in the Hospitality Management field." -Admiral Marc Y. E. Pelaez, 2004 

 Marti lived in the astronaut-like clean atmosphere while making oxygen through hydrolysis and using the earth's waters for many things. Many a night went by - sleeping next to a torpedo with his arm thrown around it like a wife - or in a 500 KW diesel generator room with a hammock. At the early age of 20, he assumed control of a quarter-million-dollar food inventory and managed the entire restaurant with his team. He was promoted rapidly from extremely high test scores for advancement and job performance evaluations by crusty, sea-going, hardened dogs who ran his head through a highly intelligent workforce one year trial. The US nuclear submarine force makes up very close to 4% of the IQ in the Navy. And, the crews, wives, and visiting dignitaries loved his food. Marti would make the next rank up the first time taking a test and would also make the first increment to get paid (within two weeks). This was important as in the Navy you could get promoted but might have to wait for a half-year+ to get paid while working for free.

He had previously worked for many summers to save each year to pay for his private Christian high school, Monsignor Bonner of Drexel Hill. He, therefore, knew what hard work was all about. 126-hour workweeks for months on end meant nothing to him (he was a graduate of Saint Philomena's in Lansdowne). He had also worked full time in his Senior year (while attending school)  learning how to make the best breakfast in the world from the International House of Pancakes (IHOP). 

A few factors dominated his young mind: 

1. Love for duty, honor, courage, and commitment. 2. An intense interest in war, martial arts, police work, and the military. 

3. Love for the ocean, sea, boats, travel, adventure, and sailing. 4. A pure and unbridled passion for service and cooking in the hospitality field. 

Having no money for college and childishly being sick of schooling he had no mature respect for attending a university. He regretfully never knew anything about student loans and thought only rich children attended colleges that had the money in hand. Later in life, that would change as he obtained an MBA. But for then, he had the drive to succeed and work himself to death, though not even knowing how or what to do. He was not about to sit around on his hands waiting for the world to turn. He took the US Military ASVAB and scored a 95. He tried to join the US Air Force but was denied due to admitted, repeated drug use as a minor, gang activity, and being jailed once. 

As the US Navy would have him, he had specifically requested to be a cook and somehow try to satisfy all of his desires.

See the inside the nuclear world while away - in the Wall Street Journal

He next graduated Hotel Management School in Memphis, TN, and ran the Bayshore's Resort of 1500 rooms and 11 buildings, as a multi-million dollar Procurement Director and later - General Manager, helping turn it into a world-awarded property in Pensacola, Florida. 

A bit out of place as a submariner on an airbase - in 1990, he helped his team achieve status to the Commander in Chief, President George H.W. Bush, Sr, of - BEST BASE IN THE WORLD, for the second year in a row (CINC's Award). He was flown to the Pentagon after a special Good Morning America show was taped at the "cradle of Naval Aviation," - home to the Blue Angels flight demonstration squadron. There, with his team and Captain Harry Jupin, they were celebrated in a special service held in the middle of the Pentagon - in the courtyard. The resort won numerous awards, including the Admiral Elmo Zumwalt Four-Star Award for Lodging. Aside from cleaning two homes his whole life, this now formed the basis of an immense hotel and resort operations in his career spanning financials, guest services, maintenance and housekeeping forces, security and safety as well as running the front desk operation.

Marti pioneered numerous ground-breaking computerized inventory, interior design, resort leisure activities, housekeeping services, and guest service initiatives that forever changed service from "Managers," to becoming, "Hosts," and, "Customers," were then treated as, "Guests," in the Navy. He received his first of five, Navy Achievement Medals and three Navy Commendation Medals from the Secretary of the Navy in 1990 thanks to CWO Theresa Withee. Marti designed the large sand-blasted signs, logo, stationery, envelopes, postcards, and folders for the upgraded Chiefs rooms and Guest rooms (called transients in the Navy) at the Bayshore's Resort. He also led a 10+ million dollar retrofit of 1200 rooms and interior design across three years of awards.

In Pensacola (NASP), he graduated from numerous security, DOD police academy (first in class), anti-terrorism, police and emergency driving course, HR, sanitation, leadership, emergency vehicle operations, OSHA, and safety schools - as a manager. He finished building security schools with the Marines at NASP and became a Squad Leader for Anti-Terrorism with the Auxiliary Security Force (ASF) under the Marines. It was here that he worked with FAST Company to protect the CINC's Conference each year and met General Gray of the US Marine Corps. 

Later, Marti would design houses and cabins at Camp David (more on that soon) including upgrades to the President's and Vice President's homes, furnishings, BOSE sound systems, design, paintings, new cabins built with the Seabees, as well as then appear on the front cover of Real Estate Showcase for his interior design work in Tennessee.

Cooking inside a sewer pipe has its challenges. But hey, daunting work can pay off later when you are struggling with things!

At the ten year mark, (in a 21-year highly decorated military career) he was stationed onboard the first nuclear submarine ever named after a Western North Carolina town - the USS Asheville, SSN 758 - when he was nominated for Presidential Support Duty under the White House Military Office. Submarine duty had honed his already natural skills of diplomacy and teamwork into highly celebrated and awarded management and leadership. When living under the world's oceans for months at a time, the ultimate goals of hard work and teamwork were celebrated. There are no days off in the Navy and workdays typically are 18 hours long. At the same time, the leadership principles of Steven Covey are highly endorsed and utilized to achieve such an unprecedented commitment to work. Getting "along" with each other becomes critical in such an environment.

As a professional cook, Marti transitioned into becoming a Chef with the guidance and mentorship of Chief Kully Crean, Chef Monroe Duncan, John Kaufmann (son to the also famed Chef of the Drake), and his Master Chief, Jesse Ruffin (with the wife of Peggy - a member of the Order of the Long Leaf Pine). They prepared him to cook for Presidents and Royalty on a daily basis as he was doing special luncheons and dinners for visiting Congress, Senators, and CEO's of major corporations. At the same time, Marti was crafting his art of massive cake decorating feats up to eight feet long at times and learning ice sculpting with 300-pound blocks of ice. Marti's three-dimensional cakes were fully edible from the mountains to the seas, and he also mastered the culinary art of Garde Manger simply by practicing each day, inside a sewer pipe (a submarine). Marti has always listened to the excuses others have for why they don't have things or money or a better position in life and the hardships of watching TV all day long or listening to music or why they couldn't afford college or training...

Neither could he.

For Marti, he figured if he threw himself into a bookstore, bought a book, read what to do - he could teach himself - and make a lot of mistakes along the way. And that would include even if he was underwater for months at a time, away from the world and his family. When he began to decorate cakes in 1984, he cut out cake decorating tips from a catsup bottle top with scissors and colored the icing with beet juice and spinach juice. Having no knowledge, schooling, or training as well as having no supplies or equipment has never been an excuse for not producing a finished, winning, champion product. These are only excuses and crutches - to Marti. Or lies to tell one's family or into the mirror. Thanks to Chief Dale Lucas who recognized he had a real pistol on his hands - he quickly bought him a full cake decorating kit with tips and bags!