MASTERMIND, THE NAME                                                                             SINCE 1975

There is no doubt that many of you have been wondering, possibly for decades, how the name Mastermind Inc. came about. Contrary to what you might think it was not a brief interlude with egomania.

Mastermind was in fact a nickname I was branded with while I was still in High School.  Back then I had a bad habit of yanking dashboards and engines out of cars (Well really anything you could unbolt if you want to know the truth) in the street in front of my parents NY home, and transporting incredibly heavy cast iron V8 engines up and down their driveway in a sawed off shopping cart that I “Customized” for this purpose. Since this apparatus lacked snow tires and four-wheel drive these activities were only temporarily suspended during snowstorms.  

This was all much to the dismay of my mother and the neighbors, and fortunately for me long before the first homeowners association (HOA) had been invented! Strangely it is possible I may be directly responsible for this modern form of tyranny, and for that I apologize sincerely to those of you who have had the “pleasure” of dealing with the “Lawn Police” as I like to call them. 

During this time my little brother and all his pot-smoking friends would come by after school and point to me while I was up to my neck in wires, upside down under the dash of my 61 T-bird, or under the hood of my Buddy’s 1970 440 6V ‘Cuda. They would say there is the “Mastermind” at work again as they laughed and floated by in their cannabis induced haze! (As you may remember many people in the 1970’s took “High School” literally) The name Mastermind stuck over the years. Then when we incorporated our business we thought it was a funny name so we just went with it. The explaination of Mastermind Inc. is as simple as that!

Sincerely,

Michael Rizzuto