CASTANO JULIO A

CPT Julio A. Castano was a potential VHPA member who died after his tour in Vietnam on 02/26/1986 at the age of 39.1 from Suicide
Miami Shores, FL
Date of Birth 01/13/1947
Served in the U.S. Army
This information was provided by SSN deceased search

More detail on this person: Julio Castano, 39 of Miami Shores JULIO CASTANO, FORMER HIALEAH OFFICIAL Miami Herald, The (FL) - Friday, February 28, 1986 Julio Castano, former right-hand man to Hialeah Mayor Raul Martinez and one-time director of Miami's Trade and Commerce Department, was found dead Wednesday in his Miami Shores home, an apparent suicide. He was 39. After an argument with his wife, and only survivor, Gwendolyn, Mr. Castano locked himself in the couple's bedroom Tuesday night, Metro-Dade police said. When his wife finally was able to get into the room the next morning, she found he had hanged himself. In January 1982, Martinez picked Mr. Castano to become Hialeah's first full-time executive for industrial development. Mr. Castano and Martinez had worked together on development projects while Mr. Castano was with the city of Miami. When Mr. Castano resigned from the Trade and Commerce Department after a dispute with his boss, then-City Manager Howard Gary, Martinez immediately hired him. "Hialeah will not be a hick town, a teen-ager afraid to grow up," Mr. Castano said shortly after his appointment. "We're sitting on a big economic wave, and if we don't ride it, we'll get crushed by it." He helped establish Hialeah Dade Development Inc., a nonprofit corporation designed to arrange low-interest business loans. Mr. Castano also aided the mayor in reorganizing the city's governmental structure. "He helped me a lot," Martinez said. Amid reports of inconsistencies in his resume, Mr. Castano resigned from his position to work in the private sector in August 1983, where, he said, he could earn a higher salary. "He went on to better things, which was good," Martinez said. The Cuban-born Mr. Castano came to the United States in the early 1960s. He served in the U.S. Army from 1966 to 1974, including two tours of duty as a platoon commander in Vietnam. After working for the Dade County United Way, Mr. Castano was appointed head of Miami's Trade Department in 1978. During his four and a half years on the job, he coordinated trade shows, supervised a capital development corporation to make commercial loans and advertised Miami throughout the world. In December 1983, Mr. Castano joined the Chas. P. Young Co., nationwide financial printers, as general manager of its Miami office. "Julio was very well known in Miami," said Jim Herb, human resources spokesman for the company."Everybody knew him and liked him." Mr. Castano resigned from Chas. P. Young last December to work for Stein Printing. Visitation will be from 7 to 9 p.m. today at theArlington National Cemetery, Arlington, V Ahern- Plummer Bird Road Chapel.

Burial information: Arlington National Cemetery, Arlington, VA

This information was last updated 02/14/2018

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Date posted on this site: 03/10/2024


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