SDI mourns passing of founder Don DeSanctis

SDI Element Logic, formerly SDI Industries, has announced that its founder Don DeSanctis, passed away on June 10, 2022, at age 90.

DeSanctis founded the company in 1977 as Systems Design Inc., leading SDI through decades of growth and international expansion before retiring several years ago. In March of this year, SDI was acquired by Element Logic, and is now known as SDI Element Logic. A history of the company can be found here.

Krish Nathan, CEO of SDI Element Logic, said DeSanctis was a personal mentor and an industry legend who influenced hundreds of employees over his many decades in the industry, many of whom remain with the company or have gone on to other positions.

“Don was an inspirational leader, who will be deeply missed by many,” said Nathan. “He provided straight forward feedback and guidance, and he was also a big-picture person. He used history and experience as building blocks, and always found a way to apply those learnings to present challenges.”

DeSanctis was known for building strong friendships with customers, while also being an early adopter of a wholistic “design-build” approach to systems, added Nathan. “He influenced the industry by pioneering a turnkey approach to warehousing and distribution solutions,” said Nathan.

After retiring from SDI, DeSanctis became involved with mentoring engineering students at the University of San Diego (USD). He made a major donation to launch a professorship at USD—the Dominick and Karen DeSanctis Professorship in Engineering and Entrepreneurship at USD’s Shiley-Marcos School of Engineering. He also invested in USD student-led startups and spent time mentoring them to be better business leaders and on how to create customer value, noted Dr. Venkat Shastri, DeSanctis Professor of Engineering & Entrepreneurship at USD.

In 2012, Modern’s Bob Trebilcock interviewed DeSanctis for our “60 seconds with” department, including his thoughts on the evolution of automation in retail fulfillment and other trends. Find that article here.