Here at JD Sutivan Construction, we hold strong family values inherited from our namesake: Josip Definis.
My name is Octavio Definis and I’d like to share a little about my family, because I believe family is the most important thing we have. Our company reflects this in how and why we do everything, every day.
Our family history –like that of many fellow Americans– is one of immigrants. It started with my great-grandfather, Josip (Joseph) Definis, who emigrated from Croatia (then Yugoslavia) to Chile in 1903 at the young age of 22 with his Italian wife, Josefina, in search of a better life. This was a daunting and sometimes perilous sea voyage in those times, and the young couple made it with hope and determination. He worked his way from the southernmost icy tip of the country to the arid mining areas of the north, where he settled, eventually expanding his family with two daughters. He ran a mining company store for many years and achieved the respect of the local community.
Josip, Josefina and their two young daughters, Ljubica and Milka, returned to Yugoslavia for five years to Josip’s hometown Sutivan, on the beautiful Mediterranean island of Brač (pronounced “Brach”). There, he held the position of town mayor while he ensured the wellbeing of his siblings and elderly parents before returning definitively to Chile.
My grandmother, Milka, was a fundamental part of my upbringing and, together with my mother of the same name and my uncle Max, she brought me up to value my family, hard work and honesty, like her father Josip had taught her. Although my grandmother passed away some years ago now, she lives on in everything I do, and I am proud to carry her surname.
Following the tradition started by my great grandfather so long ago, I emigrated from Chile to the U.S 25 years ago. I worked hard, learned the trade of construction from the very bottom, fell in love, got married and had two beautiful children, Skylar and Diego. I rose from laborer to foreman and eventually branched out on my own, creating a team from the colleagues I had met while employed and who I trusted to work as hard and diligently as me. I returned to Chile for a couple of years with the intention of settling down there to accompany my mother. I even founded a construction company there, but by then I had become so American in the way I thought and did things that I just couldn’t find my place.
The U.S had become “home”. I also missed my kids, and it was finally that tug of the heartstrings that brought me back to Massachusetts to found my own construction company. I named it JD Sutivan Construction in honor of my great-grandfather who had such an impact on my family values, even though I never met him. I like to think he’d be proud to see his descendants still working hard, championing honesty and looking after their families, the way he always did. This company is living proof of his legacy.
