LYNNFIELD – Navy veteran Rick Obey has been creating inventions throughout his whole life, but the products that have really taken off all cater to fallen veterans.
Obey’s company Roventeur sells many products for grave sites such as floral toppers, headstone wreath hangers and military flag holders. The company’s name begins with Obey’s initials; the rest of the name is a play on the word “inventor” and a nod to Obey being French, as he used the French word “inventeur” for the name’s spelling.
Roventeur’s military flag holders come in a variety of designs to honor the veteran’s service.
“My wife (Rosemary Obey) and I really love the fact that we can produce a product that honors the veterans,” Obey said.
For example, Obey created a Purple Heart design for his military flag holders that has been purchased all across the North Shore and America. Obey notably made about 200 Purple Heart flag holders for Nahant ahead of its Aug. 7 Purple Heart ceremony.
“We started out without the medallion,” Obey said. “It was just the flag holders without the medallion on it, and then I decided to add on the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine and Coast Guard, and then from there, people kept asking me, you know, ‘Can you do police?’ I said, ‘Sure, I’ll do police.’ And then I said, ‘Well, if I do police, I gotta do fire,’ so I did fire.”
Obey said he believes he now carries about 28 different decals, and his wife Rosemary added that if a customer sends a PDF file with their desired logo and design, Roventeur can make it.
Obey shared the lengths he goes to to ensure that his products are weather resistant.
“Every day before we sold one, we froze it and defrosted it because there were some companies that told us, ‘Oh, yeah, we can do it,’ and we got it home; we put it in the freezer; we defrosted it a few times, and it started to peel,” Obey said. “I said, ‘We can’t have that.’ We need a process. So finally, we got the process down to where now we can really guarantee them for 20 years.”
He added, “My brother has one down in Connecticut, and he had the hurricane, and it’s still up! So we call them hurricane proof.”
Obey added that another reason why his military flag holders are better than the others on the market is because they don’t fall over from wind.
“See those little stakes there, and they twist, and they turn, so they’re never out forward like this one?” Obey said, pointing to another flag design at Forest Hill Cemetery. “(My designs) are always out forward because we make a flat stake. The round ones, they spin around, and then the wind gets them, and they fall down.
“We have taken so many pictures of them down on the ground, and that’s what we use for a sales pitch.”
Obey said his products can be bought on Amazon and that he typically works with Veteran Service Officers on wholesale purchases rather than individual customers.
“We don’t really sell to individuals, but the woman from Nebraska calls me up: ‘My husband doesn’t have a flag holder, and the City won’t give him one.’ ‘Give me your address. I’ll just mail it.’ It makes me feel good,” Obey said. “We do it all the time. I just sent 20 to a guy out in Westfield who’s going down to Maryland to do a Purple Heart event.”
He added that the military headstone wreath hanger was such a successful product, it helped him launch the military flag holders. Obey noted he sold 7,000 wreath hangers to honor those who died in Pearl Harbor in Hawai’i.
“We just sold them another 600 this year too,” Obey said. “Every year they buy more so that they all will have a wreath (hanging on the stone) instead of on the ground because what happens is:
“Wreaths Across America comes. They don’t have hangers for the wreaths, so they’re just laying on the ground. Then the people come to cut the lawn, and that stuff breaks up their blades because that’s wire. So now the place in Hawaii says, ‘People are asking what can you do?’ So I said, ‘Well, I have these. I can sell them.’ And then another military outfit in Indiana called, and they wanted them, so we sold them a few thousand.”
He laughed as he shared some positive feedback he received about his wreath hangers from a nun, who had purchased four herself.
“She called me up from the cemetery,” Obey recalled, “and thanked me because she said, ‘I have arthritis so bad. Every year when I come to put the wreaths on, I’d have to wire around the stone, and it falls down.’ She thanked me, (and) she said, ‘I’m putting you in my prayers for one year.’ I said, ‘Well, you bought four. I need all the prayers I can get!’”
He added, “We do have people who write us nice letters and thank us and call us from all over the place to thank us for making the product, so I think that’s nice. That’s the reward.”
