Inwood native honored by the Columbia Police Association

A former Nassau County police detective who runs a family-owned business in Inwood started by his father and has two sons who are police officers was named the Columbia Police Association Business Man of the Year.

Ron Marciano, an Oceanside resident, was honored by an organization that has the dual purpose of supporting Italian-Americans and law enforcement officers, similarly to the way that Marciano has served both the customers of Burnside Collision and the residents of Nassau for 22 years. He is a longtime member of the association.

“It was tremendous, emotionally and in a spiritual sense,” Marciano said about being recognized as he sat in his neatly appointed office at Burnside. “My dad (Salvatore) started the business with a car trunk of tools and he desired to be a business entrepreneur. To look back and see how he started this is humbling to me.”

That trunk spawned a business in 1960 which grew from a small garage to roughly 20,000-square feet of space for auto body repair work. Marciano recounted the days when the Herald used the Chrysler K-cars to deliver the papers. “They packed them with newspapers and we kept them together,” he said.

Becoming a police office was spurred by a cousin, Tom Cardi, who also worked at Burnside, who became a member of the New York Police Department. Joining the Nassau force in 1983, Marciano first served in the 4th Precinct. 

“It’s rewarding,” Marciano said about having his sons follow one of his career paths, “and these times it’s troublesome to be in law enforcement. You are vulnerable and it’s truly challenging.”

In trying to illustrate how her father has served a role model and mentor in the Five Towns and Oceanside, Melissa Marciano said. “When I was in elementary school, a girl in my class was in terrible car accident with her family, said Melissa, who is the deputy press secretary for County Executive Laura Curran. “A mutual friend decided to reach out to my dad, who owns Burnside Collision, on behalf of the family. She explained what happened and mentioned that, unfortunately, the family was really struggling and could not afford to fix their car. Without hesitation, my dad asked them to bring the car to his shop. He personally bought all the needed parts and repaired the car for free.”

That story complements what Frank Ruvolo, a past president of the Columbia Police Association, said about the person he nominated for this year’s award. “He would give you the shirt off his back and would help in any way and if you couldn’t help he would lead you to someone who could,” Ruvolo said.

Married nearly 40 years to Ida, the woman he calls “the love of my life,” Marciano stepped in to run the family business after his father died in 1985, and for 19 years had dual careers.  The couple also has two sons. When his mother, Fran, died in 2003, running the business became more demanding and he stepped away from police work to answer the family’s siren call.

“I’ve always admired my dad for his moral compass in every aspect of his life, he always did the right thing,” Melissa said. “I know he instilled in me a deep sense of civic duty. It has led me to take great pride in my career in public service.”