Rudolph the Red-Nosed reindeer can relax when Santa gets to Ivoryton. Gary Riggio has Rudolph’s job. He will light Santa’s way at the opening of Ivoryton Illuminations on Saturday, Dec. 5 from 5 to 8 pm.

Santa, who hitches his sled and reindeer to a cloud, will descend at 6:30 in the evening from a aerial platform lift 60-feet in the air to the patio in front of the Ivoryton Playhouse. Gary, with a spotlight fastened to his head, lowers Old Saint Nick in one of his construction company’s eight-foot wide buckets. Each bucket can hold two people.

Gary, who controls the aerial plantform from the bucket, usually does a couple of dry runs the day before. There is little room for mistake. He has to avoid the roof of the Ivoryton Playhouse and high-tension wires while getting Santa down on target on the playhouse patio. Gary says that Santa himself, an expert in aerial landings, is accustomed to the procedure that drops him from the sky to the heart of Ivoryton.

Ivoryton Illuminations, which will light the center of town throughout the month of December, features some 300,000 flashing lights synchronized to seasonal music accessible by car radio. Opening night on Dec. 5 includes not only Santa’s visit, but also caroling and special events, like gingerbread cookie decorating and letter writing to Santa, sponsored by local businesses and the Ivoryton library.

Running construction equipment is nothing new for Gary. He has been doing it all his life. His father Richard Riggio started the construction company about 60 years ago and Gary is now president. In addition, Richard Riggio was the first selectman of Essex for eight years in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Gary himself has up until now stayed clear of town politics.

“I saw my father—out of the frying pan into the fire,” he says, but he agreed to serve as an alternate on the town Planning Commission.

He says his experience as a builder, particularly with subdivisions, will be an helpful in the Planning Commission’s work.

Gary remembers the early years when the construction company was a small operation, employing eight people. Now, depending on the season and the job, Richard Riggio and Sons has a staff of between 30 and 50 employees. About 70 percent of the company’s business is residential construction with the other 30 percent devoted to light industrial construction.

These days Gary, who graduated from Quinnipiac University with a degree in business administration, spends most of his time behind a desk, meeting with clients and contractors, but he says in a pinch, he can substitute on any of the jobs.

“I grew up in this business. I’ve done everything there is to do. If we are short a truck driver or somebody else, I can go out and do it,’ he says.

He might not be driving a truck, but Gary still loves to drive, and loves cars. He has a collection of vintage Corvettes as well as a 1964 Pontiac GTO and a custom-built 1934 Ford Coupe.

“I like muscle cars,” he explains.

He has a second garage to house some of his collection, which also includes a Harley-Davidson motorcycle.

“First time I ever bought a new one,” he says, explaining all his earlier ones had been used models.

The cycles have gotten a real workout; Gary has ridden a motorcycle up Mount Washington several times.

Gary’s fascination with cars and speed have also led him to taking racing lessons at the Skip Barber Racing School at the Lime Rock track in Salisbury. Beyond the lessons, Gary and a friend have together rented a racecar for a day of fast driving at the facility. How do you drive a car at race track speed?

“Very carefully,” Gary says.

Boats are also a longtime recreation for Gary. He says he bought his first with money he saved from his paper route when he was eight years old. It was an unpainted Brockway skiff that he fixed up himself. He believes he was nine when he had saved up enough money to buy a small Evinrude outboard motor for the craft.

For many years Gary loved to water ski and loved the fast boats that are a part of the sport. Now, he says, he uses his 42-foot boat more for cruising. When his three grown daughters were young, he and his wife did family boating weekends.

“Not a bad way for kids to grow up,” he says.

Gary’s wife Rebecca has been a health teacher at Adams Middle School in Guilford for some 40 years.

Every so often, the office at Riggio construction gets a call for the other branch of the Riggio family, the one that owns and operates Riggio’s Garden Center.

“People call asking for a floral bouquet and we tell them they have the wrong Riggios,” Gary says.

He and his cousin Sam, who ran the garden center that is now overseen by his daughter, grew up together in Centerbrook.

Gary remains a great Ivoryton booster, and not just for the boost he gives Santa Claus to get sky borne. A sign at company headquarters advises that the company’s annual Christmas luncheon will be at a restaurant in Ivoryton.

“I like to keep things local,” Gary says.

Ivoryton Illuminations

Saturday, Dec. 5 from 5 to 8 p.m.; Santa Claus arrives at 6:30. Lights continue through the month of December. Parking for the Dec. 5 event is at the Ivoryton Congregational Church, the Copper Beech Inn, and the Ivoryton Inn. There is a shuttle service between the parking lots and downtown.