Ricky grew up in Laurel Fork, Virginia, about 30 miles away from where our offices currently are. His educational background is in Electronics Engineering Technology from New River Community College and later Business Technology from Appalachian State University. In 1981, Ricky began his career with International Business Machines (IBM) in the Washington D.C. area. He then moved to Winston-Salem, North Carolina in December of 1982 to join RJ Reynolds Tobacco Company. During those 28 years at RJRT, he worked in many roles. However, the majority of his positions were in electronics or automation related jobs, with a significant amount of his career managing equipment obsolescence programs at RJRT. During those years, Ricky and his wife Renee raised three daughters and now have three energetic grandchildren. Some of Ricky’s hobbies include: flying airplanes, music, and taking care of his boyhood farm.
In 2010, Ricky started TAM in the basement of his house in North Carolina. He was able to start the company with his background in electronics and automation. Ricky then began cooperating with ITM. They were looking to expand their offerings in the US market and with Ricky starting a company, he was able to leverage his automation skills and equipment renovation knowledge. From there, TAM began to continually grow into what it is today, a campus in Woodlawn, Virginia.
Brad Rodriguez
Managing Director
Brad was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and moved to Baltimore, Maryland during elementary school. He grew up there, until he left for a small school in the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia. He graduated from Bridgewater College in 2004 with a B.S. in Biology. Brad met his wife, Melissa, while at Bridgewater College in 2001 and they were married in 2006. They currently live in Galax, Virginia, about 20 minutes from the TAM, Inc. offices, with their two energetic boys and an even more energetic dog. For most of his life through his second year of college he played football, however now he enjoys spending his weekends watching his sons play soccer. When it’s not soccer season, they like to visit new places as a family or just stay home and work outside together.
Brad’s working career began shortly after he graduated. After Bridgewater, he stayed in The Valley working at Perdue Farms poultry processing facility, in the Microbiology Quality Lab. In 2007 he went to work for HSRL, a histology lab, where he began to refine his project management skills as the Coordinator of Histology and Lab Manager for a large number of pharmaceutical toxicology research projects. In 2011 he went back to work for Perdue as the plant’s Quality and Food Safety Coordinator. In 2016 he began working at TAM and in 2018 he became the Managing Director. In his career he has over a decade of project management experience in a wide range of areas, all of which included some form of government regulation (USDA and FDA) – from lab testing to on-site auditing, quality control to research, food and beverage to manufacturing.
