Ever since he was a student of Liceul de Matematica-Fizica nr. 3 (Mathematics and Physics High School now “Bathory”) in Cluj, Vasile Vita had been keen on electronics. He would keep working on all sorts of amplifiers and feeders all day long.
No wonder he passed the entrance exam with the Electronics Faculty. He graduated in 1986 and became employed with Intreprinderea de Pescuit Oceanic (Oceanic Fishing Company -IPO) Tulcea, as an electronics engineer on a telecommunications vessel.
Chance saw to it that the young engineer did not have to work on this position for a single hour. He went to IPO, was registered in the company’s records and then spent a year at home on unremunerated leave.
There was a simple reason behind this: he had relatives abroad, namely in Australia, and the Romanian Communist Party (PCR) policy did not allow such people with a “stained” record to work in places from where they could have easily left the country.
In order to get a transfer, the young engineer needed approval from Elena Ceausescu (wife of the former Romanian communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu).
He did not get it, but the Education minister at the time changed his appointment and sent him from IPO Tulcea to Intreprinderea Judeteana de Transport Local Cluj (Local Transport County Company in Cluj), the Streetcar department. He stayed with this company until the Revolution, when he got the idea of establishing his own business and doing what he knew best: electronic parts.
“I had no money, so my father gave me 100,000 lei for the share capital. This is how SC Vitacom Import Export SRL sprang to life on July 26, 1991,” Vasile Vita recounts.
Electronic parts were in high demand and he would bring them from Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Poland. The company was based in his own home and the merchandise was stored in a locker.
During his first trip abroad, he bought $200’s worth in parts and made $800 in profit. He started out by selling those parts in flea markets and then shifted to selling them through state-owned shops. A couple of months later he hired two of his friends to help him.
Sad times were to come for Vitacom Company during the period in which “Caritas” (a pyramidal game) thrived, that is 1992 and early 1993, as “People had money and would not have their home appliances fixed.
They would go and buy others with the money they had gained from the game.
I was one who did not gamble in Caritas and I advised everyone to stay away from it. One could have done some simple calculations and see that such a game stood little chance of lasting,” Vitacom owner said.
In 1994, a year after Caritas’ disappearance, Vasile Vita managed to open his own store. Slowly but steadily, the company started to rise. In 1995, he set up his first operational point in Bucharest. One year later, he opened his second store in Bucharest, as well.