MICHAEL ANDREOZZI, owner and CEO of Beltone New England, was awarded the Dean’s Distinguished Achievement Award by the University of Rhode Island for making a difference in his industry and community, and for giving back to the University of Rhode Island. In addition to this recognition, Andreozzi was honored during the 66th Annual International Hearing Society Convention and Expo in September.
What is most rewarding about your industry? The No. 1 thing for everyone on my team is the joy and satisfaction we get when we change someone’s life with hearing aids. To have the ability to give a lost sense back is very powerful and the reactions we get each day in our offices are very touching and sensitive to all of us.
Personally, my most rewarding part of the business is seeing the amazing team members rise to the highest levels within our field and be proud they all work for our Beltone team. I have had many of my managers relocate to other parts of the USA and open their own Beltone businesses because of what they learned on my team and that is perhaps my greatest high, seeing them duplicate the business model and culture we have in New England to other parts of the USA!
How do you or your company give back to the local community? We are involved in several charities, including The National Grace Foundation – a foundation to help support students with cancer and their families navigate the college admissions and financial aid process, all for free – and the Beltone Hearing Care Foundation, which is a charitable organization that donates hearing instruments to those in need of hearing help who may be unable to access it. We are also involved with the Hasbro Children’s Foundation’s TALC [The Adolescent Leadership Council] program summer camp, a year-round program for teens who live with chronic medical illnesses and their families. We have also raised money to help support their pediatric audiology department.
Our team is most known for a mission that we do each year, the VOSH Mission. VOSH [Volunteer Optometric Services to Humanity] allows us to donate used hearing aids, along with equipment from our Beltone locations, to be used by VOSH to deliver to individuals in various countries that do not have access to and/or cannot afford hearing aids. This year’s mission is going to Panama in January, where a group of 50 to 70 individuals will go down and fit these donated aids to the people who are in need of these services.
Can you tell us about Meatball Monday? Being brought up in an Italian family from Cranston with five brothers and sisters, I was always surrounded by amazing food and lots of it. I will never forget Sunday mornings: the smell of garlic, onions and “Sunday Sauce” cooking in the kitchen as I awoke to start the day. Those memories have never left me. Every Sunday for [more than] 20 years, I’ve made meatballs, sausage, short ribs, chicken cutlets, pizza, calzones and other foods for my family. I started bringing the food into the office and feeding the Beltone team on Monday mornings and it became a huge hit. I had to start increasing the production of meatballs to keep the team happy.
This started the tradition of “Meatball Monday” at our Beltone headquarters in Warwick, and now has become a worldwide social media event. I post a picture each Monday of something the “meatball” has done this past week in some kind of event or life experience. The postings have gone viral at times and I have so many people following me now to see what the Monday meatball will be involved in today! I absolutely love it because in my life, I was brought up to show love through food and this gives me the ability to bring my team the love I have for all of them.
