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You’ll notice the Cowboy boots when you meet Steve Vise, Branch Manager at The Lee Group’s Richmond office.
The El Paso, Texas, native is true to his roots. He wears boots to work every day. He’s an unabashed Dallas Cowboys and Texas Longhorns fan, and if you happen to stop by his new Hanover County home on 15 acres, you’ll notice the stars. Texans are proud to be part of the Lone Star state.
“My house has stars everywhere,” he said.
Someday Vise might get back to Texas, but for the foreseeable future, he’s immersed in not only his role at The Lee Group but also in the community he has come to call home.
Vise joined The Lee Group in 2016 after retiring from the Army as a Sergeant First Class. His years of recruiting for the military transitioned well to his initial position as a staffing manager.
“I came in and hit the ground running,” Vise said. “The office was in its infancy. We were an office of two. We started growing, doubling the size of the accounts we had.”
Today, six full-timers work in the Richmond office.
While the skillset and even the software at The Lee Group mimicked Vise’s experience in human resources for the Army, he also found other similarities. While he didn’t plan a career in the military, he discovered an authenticity there that aligned with his preferred way to do business.
The Lee Group offers that, too.
“I like telling it how it is,” he said. “We have a different approach. We shoot straight with each other and let things fall in place; we just be real about it. I also feel we’re different from just about every other agency. We have a level of trust with our employees. We have a level of trust with our clients. They know they can count on us and we’ll do what we say we’ll do.”
Life is busy for Vise away from work as he and his wife, Katelyn, are parents to three children — a 21-year-old Marine, a 14-year-old football player at Mechanicsville High School and 4-year-old Liliana. Vise is also a Reserve Deputy for the Hanover County Sheriff’s Department. During the evening, he regularly attends the Sheriff’s Academy for training.
“It’s completely volunteer; we do everything a sheriff’s deputy does but it’s just on a part-time basis,” he said. “I’ve always had a strong connection with my community. When I was on active duty, there were a lot of things I wanted to do but couldn’t.”
Growing up, Vise actually wanted to be a Texas state trooper and enrolled in the military in preparation for that. Being a sheriff’s deputy fulfills those law enforcement aspirations that linger.
In his rare free time, Vise is outdoors for fishing, hunting, playing cornhole or dirt biking with his son, Jace. Sundays are reserved for Cowboys football and he’s never remiss to add to his massive exotic boot collection with matching belt buckles, many of them adorned with stars.
