Founder of the
Peter & Jeri Dejana Foundation
Peter Dejana founded the Peter & Jeri Dejana Foundation and served as its guiding force. His ingenuity, determination, and unwavering perseverance made the foundation’s creation and its continued growth possible. By establishing the foundation, Peter sought to ensure that his commitment to helping communities would endure for generations to come.
Today, the foundation’s dedicated team remains committed to carrying forward his legacy of promoting prosperity and service. Through thoughtful philanthropy, we strive to honor Peter’s vision and reflect the lasting influence of a leader who touched countless lives.
Peter’s story began in 1940. He was born in Pattada, a small town in the province of Sassari on the Italian island of Sardinia. Seeking greater opportunity in the United States, his father immigrated to New York with fifteen-year-old Peter and his four younger siblings. The Dejana family settled in Port Washington, historically known as the Cow Neck Peninsula, on the North Shore of Long Island.
At the time, the area was undergoing rapid development, with its sand mines supplying the region’s renowned “Cow Bay sand” to support the expanding infrastructure of New York City. Peter and his father lived in a modest shack on West Shore Road, at the heart of the Peninsula’s sand mining operations. As a newly arrived immigrant and the eldest son in a working-class family, Peter began laying the foundation of the Dejana legacy in the very community he would call home for the rest of his life.
Peter devoted much of his youth to taking on odd jobs. He was, in every sense, an ambitious and enterprising young man. By 1957, what had begun as a part-time effort cutting grass and clearing snow had evolved into a full-time occupation and the start of a small business. Anchoring himself in the close-knit community of Port Washington, Peter cultivated lasting relationships and built a loyal client base, steadily expanding his business into a trusted local enterprise.
Peter’s many decades in the United States begins on Long Island, New York.
Driven by a belief in the promise of the American Dream, he worked relentlessly to turn his entrepreneurial ambitions into reality.
Peter often spent time avidly tinkering on his beloved motorcycles, repairing and racing cars, and pursuing the hobbies he loved. Throughout it, he worked relentlessly, building a simple yet fulfilling life that the son of an immigrant sand miner could scarcely have imagined.
A defining characteristic of Peter’s life was the tenacity and restlessness he brought to everything he pursued, particularly his professional endeavors. Combined with a highly technical, engineering-driven mindset, these qualities led him to become a pioneer in snow removal technology, including the development of the first 600-ton-per-hour snow melter.
Alongside his wife, Geraldine (“Jeri”) Dejana, Peter transformed a series of small landscaping and snowplowing operations into the expansive enterprises of Dejana Industries, Inc. and Aero Snow Removal Corp., which by the late 1990’s had become among the largest municipal service providers in North America.
From commercial snow removal at major airports and for large-scale commercial clients to solid waste disposal, highway sweeping, and catch basin cleaning, Dejana Industries and its affiliates touched nearly every corner of the nation’s transportation infrastructure. Wherever America needed to go, Peter Dejana and Dejana Industries were there to help clear the way.
When Peter and Jeri Dejana established the foundation in 2010, they did so without a narrow philanthropic focus. Their sole intention was to give back, particularly to Port Washington, the community that helped shape their success. Over time, Peter’s sense of fulfillment in supporting local organizations grew significantly. By the time he sold Dejana Industries in 2017, the foundation had grown to approximately $75 million in assets.
His ambition and determination never waned; he continued working insistently until the very end. Peter often expressed that, while he was grateful for the many opportunities afforded to him in the United States, his connection to the Port Washington community remained one of his most cherished experiences. Peter passed away at the age of 84 in 2024.
Over time, the Peter & Jeri Dejana Foundation came to embody the breadth of his life’s work, reflecting the values, communities, and causes that mattered most to him. The organizations the foundation supported became a vibrant representation of the people, places, and ideas for a better society that Peter and Jeri held dear.
When considering how his legacy would continue after his passing, Peter was adamant that the foundation would serve as the vessel through which to preserve and expand his commitment to giving, remaining forever rooted in the Port Washington community that shaped him while extending its reach to create meaningful impact for communities across the nation and around the world.