Rick Riley

Rick Riley, CEO of Townsend Design, and a former student of the Communication Department recently shared his memories of Andrews with us and updated us on his life since graduation.

Riley graduated in 1983 with a communications degree, with an emphasis in journalism. Dr. Bauer, Dr. Giddings and Kermit Netteburg were three of his primary professors. "I have many fond memories of the classes I took in Nethery Hall" Riley said. Bruce Closser was one of the first people at Andrews who inspired Riley to write. "Most students hated freshman comp, but it was in the basement of Nethery in his class that I first found my literary voice" Riley said.

Riley worked for three years on the Student Movement in various roles and wrote many articles for the newspaper from 1981-83. In addition to the routine stories, there were several somewhat controversial subjects as it was an interesting time on campus and for the church. Riley remembered "we had a competitive, yet friendly, relationship with the staff at the student newspaper at PUC, and we were always trying to one up each other." Riley spent many all-nighters putting together the paper. "Back in those days, we had to manually set and layout the text, crop the pictures, etc." Riley said. He continued "how we would have loved the luxury of desktop publishing!"

Riley remembered his advisor, Dr. Netteburg, telling him during his junior year that he should consider changing his major because his spelling was so bad. "Of course that was before computers could check spelling errors," Riley states. "My spelling is much better, but I also rely on technology to proof my work."

Riley also worked for two years at the Herald Palladium in Benton Harbor St. Joe during his junior and senior years. It was a working internship. "I was paid $4.50 an hour which was a good hourly rate at that time. The editorial staff in the Sports Department called me 'Rookie' and helped me advance my writing skills" said Riley. He covered local high school sports and learned how to crank out 4-5 sports-related stories an evening on a typewriter, as there were no computers at the newspaper.

"I think there were only about 10 communication department graduates in 1983. I know the class wasn't very big," Riley said. He got a job right out of college as the Public Information Officer for Glendale Adventist Medical Center in the Los Angeles area. He remembers his starting salary was $17,200 a year and how that was more than any of the other new grads from Andrews University were offered.

He went from there to White Memorial Medical Center as their publications manager, and then took a job in Bakersfield, CA with a non-Adventist hospital as the director of marketing. He worked a total of about 12 years in hospital marketing and administration before joining the staff at Townsend Design. Riley said "while the company name makes it sound like we are an ad agency or design house, in fact we are an orthopedic manufacturer (we design orthopedic devices). You can visit our web site www.townsenddesign.com to better understand the nature of our business."

Originally Riley worked as the vice president of sales and marketing, and took over in January, 2003 as the company CEO. "We have approximately 120 employees, 70 sales representatives across the United States, and international distributors in about 15 countries" said Riley. He continued "we are a relatively small manufacturer compared to the major orthopedic companies we compete against, but we strive to make good products and provide a high level of customer service."

Throughout his career, Riley believes that communication and writing have been the key to his professional success. "I continue to create the majority of the text for our company's brochures, ads and web site" said Riley. "While that probably isn't the typical role for a CEO, it is something I enjoy" explained Riley. He estimated that he probably writes between 40-70 e-mail messages each day to customers, managers and sales representatives, and being able to do this easily and quickly is vital.

 Riley concluded by stating "I wish every college graduate had to take at least 3-4 writing and communication classes as part of their core requirements. I have encountered many, many professionals in management roles who have limited written and verbal communication skills."