Kapali & Sons - located within the heart of Caprica City itself - was one of the oldest, and often considered one of the best, construction companies founded on Caprica by Caprican's. Kapali's first project for Caprica city centered around renovations of the civic center, courthouse and many of the major municipal buildings. Since 1909 Kapali & Son's had been a leader in providing preconstrucion, construction management and general building services from the Caprica City office to clients within the city itself and all across the region. Time and quality in all phases of construction are measured best by their performance record and the high level of satisfaction generated from former clients. Lars Kapali (the founding member of the business) and his son Michael Kapali started with a one room office taking paying jobs on a day labor basis and built the company upward from that single room to a world renown company. The great great grandson of Lars Kapali (Patrick Kapali) was the most recent and youngest heir apparent to take on the reins of management of the business in the early 80's.
Some people are born lucky. Loving families that drive them nuts. Economical standing to have the usual resources to draw upon for food, shelter, education, etc. The normal, and typical, social and cultural trauma to endure while maturing to adulthood. A decent genetic hand dealt to ensure a healthy body and mind. Some people are just born lucky. In most cases this is called 'Normal', which to be fair is nothing more than the median point between wildly diverging extremes. No matter how it's tilted or flipped on it's side 'normal' is what people aim for, 'luck' is what people hope for and 'extraordinary' is what happens to some people along the way. And sometimes . . luck just runs out. Born to the Kapali family, the youngest child of Patrick & Maureen Kapali, sister to Nicholas and potentially destined to be a pampered princess. Luck, such as it is, is a fickle thing. A minor accident on one of the commuter rail lines turned from a minor delay into a tragedy when one train collided with another before it could be successfully rerouted. Among those to perish in this accident were Patrick, his wife Maureen, along with their eldest son Nicholas. Their only surviving child, Penelope Kapali, was raised by her fraternal grandparents - Richard and Karen Kapali. Of the things to be born to - a good family, good name, economical and social standing - this the luck that Penelope (Penny or just plain Pen) was born with.
In their grief, Richard and Karen were perhaps more generous with their time and attention to their only grandchild than they had been with their son. Her earliest memories were of playing under the desk in the home office, listening to construction deals being made, connections being managed and finessed and learning the complex math that is accounting and recognizing that math is beautiful while tax laws suck. The generous attention she received was eventually paired with a strong work ethic that tempered the lavish life style with gritty and often grimy work that Pen was tasked to from her earliest age in after school hours to long summers under the beating sun wearing jeans, t-shirt and hard hat. From work inside the office to hauling everything from 2x4's, buckets of construction waste, ropes of nails, every type of tool imaginable and so much more.
Kapali & Son's was one of the few construction companies in Caprica City awarded contracts (time and again) to manage the demolition of public buildings to make way for new construction, urban renovation and the like. By the time was eighteen she knew the construction world inside and out, everything from driving heavy machinery to helping set the charges (under the careful, watchful and experienced eye of the site engineer) the granddaughter of Richard and Karen Kapali was NOT a pampered princess, far from it. Yes, wealthy family, exacting education, but a hard worker. Welcome on any job site, welcome on any crew, any team, no matter the contract or the job. A Kapali always gets the job done, simple as that.
It was expected that Pen would attend university, pick up her engineering degree with a focus on business management, take over the reins of the business when the time would come. But the girl who was not a pampered princess took the avenue unexpected. Two years into university, and well into apprenticeship at her family company, Pen decides to broaden her horizons and build network connections of her own. Just after her 21st birthday she enlisted in the colonial marines. Granted, she had no weapon training or hunting experience to call on, but she knew how to use damned near any weapon in the marine tool kit, including anything that just happened to be at hand when unexpected circumstances happened to arise. Plus. . knowing how to set charges for construction demolition purposes isn't exactly a skill that she couldn't turn to use as well. She had a lot to learn, being reasonably athletic is one thing and working every day and every summer made her lean, made her strong. But there's personal strength and then there's being a Marine. Entirely different set of standards.
Marine training was the hell it was supposed to be, like every other marine recruit she needed to be broken and re-shaped into a tool that the Marine corps could make good use out of. Trading on her family name was never an option that Pen considered, preferring by far to prove herself - or not - depending on the assignment, the mission. No duty was to boring, no watch to mind-numbing, no job to dirty for her to tackle. A Kapali never quits, even when elbow deep in grime or hip deep in mind. A Kapali doesn't quit, simple as that. The start of the war found Pen assigned to the marine unit attached to the Rambling Kimber and only recently being assigned to Dog company as additional engineer/demolition assist.
As a side note, upon completion of boot and receiving her first assignment, Penny's family hosted a bit of a 'gathering', which (in translation) meant inviting everyone in the neighborhood, all of their family (which is not an insignificant number) along with friends and colleagues and more. At one point during the festivities a bit of a information was ultimately shared with Penelope that she had - until that point - not been privy too. Her father, in his youth, had spent a several years with an equally young woman named Rachel with whom he'd had a son several years before he and her own mother had met and ultimately married. Upon the death of her parents, Rachel had elected to not associate further with the Kapali family during their time of grief. It was only a matter of timing, Rachel's son (Penelope's only surviving sibling - half sibling) had recently married and he and his wife had begun a family of their own. Shocked as she was by this knowledge, the reality that she was hours away from reporting to her first assignment didn't offer a generous leeway of time with which to discuss the details or sort through a fundamental re-shaping of the vision and memory she had of her parents. Ultimately, she and her half brother agreed to exchange correspondence and between assignments she came to know her half brother, his wife and eventually their young daughter. At the start of the war she had been days away from leave which would have allowed her to attend her niece's birthday party. Five being a rather auspicious year, and as far as Pen was concerned the first REAL birthday that she remembered, she'd accumulated a number of gifts for her niece that - ultimately - she was never able to deliver. Over the course of the war she would inquire of any survivors from Caprica whether there was any news from Caprica City itself, always searching the list of survivors. To her, family is everything, and no matter the shape or summary of the war, she will continue to search for her family, for answers.
