Grit over Luck: A First-Generation Entrepreneur’s Path from Campus to Corporation
Whitestone, NY, native Peter Zuccarello ’04TCB always knew he would one day take over the family’s floral business. His time at St. John’s University gave him the foundation to grow it far beyond its roots.
“I grew up behind the cash register at the age of 10, ringing up customers and stocking shelves,” he said. Founded in 1976 by his father Salvatore and uncle Joe after emigrating from Palermo, Sicily, QG Floral + Landscape has grown from a neighborhood shop into one of New York City’s top floral and landscape companies.
St. John’s was local. It’s a great school with a strong reputation, and many successful entrepreneurs with grit came out of St. John’s.
Mr. Zuccarello stayed local for college, working full time in the family business while studying. “St. John’s was local,” he recalled. “It’s a great school with a strong reputation, and many successful entrepreneurs with grit came out of St. John’s—Mike Repole and John Catsimatidis, to name a few.” He built his class schedule around work.
“Fundamentally, a college education teaches you to think differently,” he stressed. While still a student, he began restructuring the business. “I was learning on the fly. It was a little overwhelming.”
After graduation, he saw the limits of a traditional retail flower shop. “I saw opportunities in the corporate world and in the city, where it was completely different than a local flower shop,” he said, recognizing early that long-term growth would require expanding beyond retail into large-scale commercial partnerships.
The business had operated as a farmers’-market-style shop rooted in his family’s agricultural background in Sicily. Today, the company services more than 150 commercial clients across New York City, reflecting its evolution from a neighborhood storefront into a full-service floral and landscape operation supporting some of the city’s most complex properties.
QG now provides landscape maintenance and construction, large-scale floral installations, and hospitality décor projects for major transportation hubs, residential towers, and iconic venues such as Resorts World New York City; John F. Kennedy International Airport; LaGuardia Airport; Madison Square Garden; and The Plaza Residences.
Mr. Zuccarello often describes his journey with one word: grit.
“Watching my family work hard, seven days a week, 365 days a year, including holidays, gave me the grit to follow in their footsteps and try to succeed as well. Nothing comes easy without sacrifice and hard work.”
“There’s not a day I go home and just relax,” he said. “I’m always strategizing about what’s next. I don’t believe in luck. I believe in hard work. So, at the end of the day, when you work hard and do good, it comes back around.”
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Once he recognized how a Master of Business Administration (M.B A.) degree would enhance his potential, David Dobrindt ’94CBA, ’98M.B.A. knew there was only one place for him—St. John’s University.
“Early in my career—when I was interviewing for jobs—there were candidates from different universities who maybe had more experience than me,” he said. “But where St. John’s stood out was in the practical use of what it was teaching me. To me, the goal of college is to prepare someone for a career, and teaching students how to operate in the real world got me ready for what I would experience as a professional.”
While touring the campus as a high school student, Elin Minasi O’Brien ’10TCB, ’14L realized something unique about St. John’s University and the city it calls home.
Born in Germany to parents who fled religious persecution in Iran, she found the Queens, NY, campus a place of intellectual energy, spiritual support, and personal tranquility.
Robert V. Ricca ’03MBA has enjoyed considerable success in the corporate and legal realms—and St. John’s University planted the seeds for that attainment. Today, Mr. Ricca is Senior Vice President for Corporate Development at Scopely, a video game developer and publisher.
When it came time for him to study for his Master of Business Administration degree, he turned to St. John’s—a school his family knew intimately. His father, Bob Ricca, was head football coach for nearly 25 years, and his mother, Lynn Schoppmann Ricca, is an alumna.