Giacomo Buzzitta was born in De Monti San Guilano, Italy (Feb. 2, 1910-Oct. ? 1989), son of Luigi and Leonarda Bonfiglo Buzzitta. He was one of four children, including brothers Andrew, Vincent and Frank, and sister Louisa. The family immigrated to the United States around 1916, coming to Grand Rapids, where Luigi worked for the rest of his life at the American Boxboard Co. The children went to St. Andrews School. Later Frank would become a foreman for John Widdicomb Furniture Co., and Andrew and Vincent would work as carpenters for the Pere Marquette Railroad.

Giacomo Buzzitta became “Jack” after immigrating to America. He attend Davis Technical & Vocational High School, the same George Davis here who was a found of Stow & Davis where he later worked. He learned the basics of drawing and furniture design there. But his greatest early influence was family friend, Italian sculptor Riccardo Lamoueci, who worked for Berkey & Gay and began helping and encouraging Jack even before High School. Following Davis Tech, Jack Buzzita studied at Grand Rapids Junior College, and then at what is now Kendall College.

At age 14, Jack had gotten a part-time job at the H.E. Shaw Furniture Co. doing detail work on period furniture drawings. Next he moved to the John Widdicomb Furniture Co., where Ralph Widdicomb taught him to look at furniture in a different way than the ornate period styles of his last position. Following this Jack worked for Macey Furniture Co., designing office furniture. He also worked as a consultant for Metal Office Furniture Co. (later Steelcase), designing their first line of metal chairs.

In 1931 Jack joined the Grand Rapids Furniture Designers Association. For more information on his activities within this organization, the reader can see the separate archival Coll. 204, for this organization, at the Grand Rapids Public Library, as well as the Furniture Design Book Collection.

In 1936, with some 84 furniture companies in Grand Rapids, Buzzitta began working at Stow-Davis Furniture Co. He is said to have been the first full-time office furniture designer in the country, at that time. He officially retired from that firm in 1975 due to ill health, though he was later able to do part-time consulting. His longevity with the company was also marked by the longevity of the firm in Grand Rapids, while many others ceased operation or moved elsewhere. Except for the brief time with Metal Office Furniture, Buzzitta's work was with wood, which he learned to respect as a material from Ralph Widdicomb, and is said to have loved the most next to his family.

In 1955, working with Donald Kohlstedt, then head of the Grand Rapids Public Library, Buzzitta established what he referred to as the Furniture Designers Workshop in March of 1955. Space was given by the Library, and Buzzitta led the Grand Rapids Furniture Designers Association to donate some 2,000 books. The Library in turn, brought to the collection unique design titles which had been in their collections since the 1920s. Buzzitta continued to lobby for donations to add to that collection throughout his life. The Furniture Design Book Collection is currently housed in one of the tower rooms, within the Grand Rapids History & Special Collections department, of the Grand Rapids Public Library.

In 1936 Jack Buzzitta married Anna Sarnicola. They had two daughters, Leona, who married James Meneghin, and Mary Ann, who married Daniel Dennis. Meneghini had done an internship with Jack Buzzitta before becoming an architect and later an instructor in architecture at the University of Michigan. Youngest daughter Mary Ann and her husband lived and worked in Grandville.

Jack Buzzitta died in October of 1989, having outlasted all of his siblings, and his parents who had died during the Word War II era.