Rich Vaill is the President of Custom Marketing Solutions LLC, a Service-Disabled Veteran Owned Small Business (SDVOSB) and vertically integrated print marketing agency specializing in offset print, digital print, large format projects, and promotional products. Rich and his team run a nimble shop that can handle large-scale projects based on each client’s needs. After 20 years in the financial sector, Rich transitioned into entrepreneurship by acquiring Custom Marketing Solutions LLC in 2023. He is a 1988 United States Naval Academy graduate and a Marine Corps veteran.
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Chris Santomassimo: Welcome to The Think Factory podcast! And I’m Chris Santomassimo, your host today. If you’re interested in joining the podcast and maybe being interviewed, feel free to reach out and schedule an appointment with us so we can have a conversation. But for today, I’m really excited to talk with a friend of ours, Rich Vaill.
Rich Vaill: Thanks, Chris! Appreciate the opportunity and looking forward to our conversation.
Chris Santomassimo: Me too. And I have to just thank Rich for coming back a second time. When I say he came back to the podcast, it’s because we screwed up the first one and didn’t get a good recording. So we’re rehearsed on this and Rich is going to do a great job as he did the first time.
Rich, you know, we were kind of drawn to each other because we were friends when you’re in your prior post-military life, but really excited to talk about what you’re doing now. Just to sort of set it up a little bit, what I think makes what you’re doing unique is your military experience as an officer and the path that you took to get there, and then what you’re doing now in the printing and promotional space.
Rich Vaill: I appreciate the opportunity, Chris. Yeah. So I spent a number of years in the Marine Corps as an officer, graduated from the Naval Academy and ventured into the world of finance and spent a long time in finance and then, you know, on the institutional and retail side and in investments and banking and even some real estate and made a career switch over back in late 2023 into the commercial printing industry.
It was an opportunity to acquire a business. It was a disabled veteran-owned business, and it was just a good opportunity. I never would have thought I would find myself in the world of commercial printing, especially at this stage, but it was just a great opportunity, and it has been a great opportunity, and I guess I’ve always been kind of drawn to marketing a little bit from a sense of, you know, branding and messaging. So it wasn’t a huge jump, but loving the journey and enjoying the process and, you know, kicks me in the teeth a little bit every day, which I guess is just part of the grind.
Chris Santomassimo: . Well, if it doesn’t kick you in the teeth a little bit every day, that means you’re not trying hard enough, I think. [laughter]
Rich Vaill: That’s right. Yeah! [laughter]
Chris Santomassimo: […] You know, one of the other reasons that we were reconnected, and sort of drawn together, was I’m so impressed by your deep grassroots focus on helping other veterans in business. Would love to hear more, you know, for purposes of the podcast, about those efforts, and, you know, maybe how folks that listen to the podcast can help support them as well.
Rich Vaill: Yeah, it’s about helping veterans in business, but also helping veterans navigate employment, leaving the service. […] I think a big, a big challenge is, you know, one, what do I want to do? The other is, how do I communicate what I’ve done in such a way that it makes sense for the person that’s interviewing me, the HR person or recruiter, and on the flip side, you know, you hope that, that you have an HR professional or recruiter that actually understands the difference between a sergeant and a lieutenant, right, that, and, or, or different roles in, in different, different services.
[…] I think the transition is tough. You’re kind of, you kind of, you know, you make your transition out, you leave, and you come home, and you look around, and you think to yourself, well, I don’t, where’s my mission, where’s my team? Now I need to figure that out.
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