Mike Vespoli
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| Full name | Michael Louis Vespoli | ||||||||||||
| Born |
December 14, 1946 (age 70) New Haven, Connecticut, U.S. |
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Medal record
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Michael Louis "Mike" Vespoli (born December 14, 1946) is an American former rower and rowing coach. He is founder and chief executive officer of Vespoli USA, Inc., a boat manufacturer in New Haven, Connecticut, that makes shells for rowing teams and individual rowers.
Vespoli was born in New Haven, Connecticut.
His career in rowing started in 1964 when he joined the Georgetown University crew as a walk-on. He went on to row with teams that won several national championships, placed in the 1972 Munich Olympics and, in 1974, was part of a team of eight American rowers that won a World Championship in Switzerland. He later coached universities and was a sculling coach for the 1980 Olympics in Moscow, which the U.S. boycotted.
As boat technology developed rapidly in England with the advent of carbon fiber and other materials used by the aerospace industry, Vespoli started his company with the help of his retired machinist father in 1980 in the U.S. His wife Nancy Vespoli, who was on the women's crew at Dartmouth College, a member of the 1980 U.S. Olympic rowing crew and has a master's degree in chemical engineering from M.I.T., is also involved in the business. The company has become a well-known boat maker with models that have won many elite races.
National Schoolboy Champions
Two consecutive Dad Vail Men's 8 Champions
Vespoli was given the goal to develop a nationally recognized rowing program in three years.
The Tony Johnson-Mike Vespoli coaching combination proves to be formidable. 1979, Yale sweeps in in HW Men's V and JV the Eastern Sprints. Yale's Heavyweight Men's 8 places first again at the 1981 Eastern Sprints. In the four years (1981–1984) following Mike Vespoli's departure as Yale's Frosh Men's Heavyweight coach, Yale's Varsity Men's Heavyweight Crew defeated Harvard in the annual Harvard-Yale race. Yale had not defeated Harvard in 18 years.
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