John Odenbach Sr. was known for Dolomite’s growth

John Odenbach Sr., former owner of the Dolomite Group-including quarries, ashphalt plants and golf courses-and an avid sailor, passed away Jan. 26.
Born in 1914, Mr. Odenbach was an alumnus of Aquinas High School and a 1936 graduate of Notre Dame University with a degree in mechanical engineering.
Dolomite, founded by his father as the Odenbach Navigation Co., was a family business, and Mr. Odenbach went to work for the company “as soon as he could be put to work,” said Pat DiLucia, Dolomite vice president.
After World War II, Mr. Odenbach took over the day-to-day operations of the family company. At that time, Dolomite consisted of two quarries and a sand and gravel operation.
When Dolomite was sold to Ireland-based Oldcastle Inc. in 2000, the company consisted of eight quarries, two sand and gravel sites, 13 asphalt plants at eight locations and six ready-mix concrete plants, along with three golf courses: Shadow Lake Country Club, Shadow Pines Golf Club and Greystone Golf Club.
“Every decade, Mr. Odenbach was pushing to expand,” DiLucia said. “In the 1950s, it was asphalt production; in the 1960s, concrete; in the 1970s, it was the golf courses; in the 1980s, building materials.
“He was definitely captain of this ship,” DiLucia said.
When he was 22, Mr. Odenbach bought his first sailboat, the Amorita, for $1,500 in New York City. The boat, one of 18 Herreshoff Manufacturing Co. racing boats built in 1905, had no engine.
Mr. Odenbach, who had no sailing experience at the time, and his crew of friends fitted the 43-foot-long yacht with a wooden frame to run a separate 22-horsepower outboard motor and sailed the Amorita to Lake Ontario via the Erie Canal.
The Rochester Yacht Club was home to the Amorita for several years before Mr. Odenbach gave it up for another boat. The Amorita still resides in the water near Newport, R.I., where it has competed in every Classic Yacht Regatta since 1983.
A poem, “Ode to Odenbach,” written by friend George Culp in 1947, is stored on a family sailing Web site. Culp describes describes Mr. Odenbach this way:
As firm as concrete, hard as rock,
Is Johnny Circe Odenbach.
By tucks and nips
The six he skips
Stays out in front by half a block.
His children and grandchildren continue Mr. Odenbach’s sailing tradition.
Mr. Odenbach leaves a large family, including his children Linda Lambrix, Joan O’Flynn, Andrea, John Jr., Laurie, Fritz and Gardner; his close companion Rosann Lill; 24 grandchildren; and 19 great-grandchildren. His wife, Lucille, and son Richard predeceased him.
A funeral mass for Mr. Odenbach was held on Wednesday, at St. Joseph’s Church in Penfield. Contributions in his memory can be made to McQuaid Jesuit High School or Our Lady of Mercy High School.
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02/03/06 (C) Rochester Business Journal