Catching up with Bart Santello: A Man of the West

Bart Santello, a 1977 graduate of , now living in Arizona, loves what the southwest has to offer.  After graduating with a degree in Mechanical Engineering from Northeastern University in 1982, Bart landed a job at Avco-Lycoming in Stratford working on such demanding projects as the development of a turbine engine for the Army’s Abrams tank. After Lycoming was sold to the AlliedSignal company and moved to Phoenix in the early 1990s, Bart stayed local and with his father, Emil, and helped run a family real estate business in Madison until Emil passed away in 1996.  Shortly thereafter, Bart received a call from a former Lycoming colleague now at AlliedSignal, with an offer to help develop and test a new turbine engine for the Swedish navy at the relocated plant in Arizona.  Signaling a time for a change and a chance to explore opportunities of the dynamic southwest region of the country, Santello packed one car-load of possessions and headed west in 1997.

Once in Arizona, Bart explored the outdoor wonders of the desert by hiking, backpacking, and mountain biking.  In his travels, he found a remote town near the international border called Arivaca. Attracted to the rugged individualism of its people and beauty of the landscape, Bart saw this town as the ideal location to purchase land and construct and off-grid, solar-powered adobe dwellings.  He wanted to show that solar power was both affordable and practical.  And by building naturally with adobe, he could live comfortably in the desert with very little heating or cooling requirements.

Bart also equates the vast open space of the area as contributing to the laid-back ‘western mindset’ that is more about exploring new ideas and lifestyle, than just working to survive.  Thus as the ‘digital’ age has emerged, Bart has also pursued a long-desired interest in independent film-making.  Currently he is developing a film on the early history of both United States and Russian space programs.

Bart still keeps his hand in the engineering field taking consulting jobs with Honeywell Aerospace that absorbed AlliedSignal in the late 1990s.  A mentor during an internship while at college once told Bart:  “You can either have four years of fun in college, followed by 40 years of work, or you can work hard these four years in school and be rewarded with 40 years of opportunity.”   Bart heeded that advice and it has allowed him to pursue his passions with the freedom to do what he truly enjoys.

Bart was recently married to Peggy Vallejo, an Arizona native.  He maintains a website of his interests at www.deserthomestead.com.