Shawn Villamagna … A success story

PERFORMING — Shawn Villamagna loves any opportunity to play his guitar. It has been a passion of his since he taught himself to play at a young age. He has performed and sang in various restaurants and bars for most of his life. Most recently, he played and sang at the Last Resort Riverfront Bar and Grill in Toronto.
— Christopher Dacanay

WELLSBURG — Life hasn’t been very straightforward for Shawn Villamagna. 

From getting his degree later in life, to trying nearly every job under the sun, Villamagna’s personal and professional journey has been full of twists and turns.

But for the Wellsburg resident — who has recently become a successful apparel business owner — life is about taking leaps of faith.

“I tell people ‘Just jump,’” Villamagna said. 

“Don’t stand on that edge because, if you do, you’re going to be there forever, and you’re never going to know if your dreams can come to fruition,” he continued.

FAMILY AND WORK — Everything Shawn Villamagna does, he does for his daughters, Sophia, left, and Grace. He enjoys any opportunity to spend quality time with them, as being a father is the best job he has ever had.
— Christropher Dacanay

“You have to fail to learn how to succeed. I’ve learned that in my 48 years of my life. I truly am a firm believer in that because, how can you learn to succeed if you haven’t been taught a lesson in failure?”

Originally from Toronto, Villamagna moved with his family to Steubenville in 1979.

He is the son of a former steelworker from Wheeling, Robert Villamagna — not to be confused with the former Steubenville councilman — who is known for mixed-media art based on the steel industry.

Shawn Villamagna recalled being raised in the LaBelle neighborhood until 1990, when his mother moved him and his brother to California for a year. After retuning, he went on to graduate from Steubenville High School in 1994.

Musically inclined since the age of 11, Villamagna started by playing drums and picked up the guitar while in California. Self-taught, he was playing in bars by the time he was 15 years old.

Riverview Tee Designs is a custom apparel business owned by Villamagna, who utilizes his printing machine to create merchandise for businesses, schools and organizations throughout the community. The business recently made a T-shirt for Rob’s Automotive in Wintersville.
— Christopher Dacanay

Villamagna went through a couple of years of college, first at the former Jefferson Technical Institute and then at Muskingum University. But he decided he didn’t want to be away from home and dropped out.

To this day, not finishing college right away remains one his “biggest regrets.” 

Throughout the years, Villamagna held a number of jobs, including in sales, collections and customer service.

He bartended throughout his 20s and continued playing music locally between 10 and 15 times per month, even having the opportunity to open for the Charlie Daniels Band, known for its hit, “The Devil Went Down to Georgia.” 

Villamagna had always been a “hustler” with a terrific work ethic, instilled in him by his parents.

That drive saw him cutting grass as a kid to buy candy and even lying about his age to work at McDonald’s to afford his first car.

He always had a job, but the nine-to-five grind never truly suited him.

As for his own personal and professional trajectory, Villamagna recalled, “I think I was lost most of my life, really.”

“I had ideas throughout life, different things I wanted to do. I never really found my way as far as ‘This is what I’m going to do for the rest of my life,’ besides music. As far as income, I was like, ‘As long as I have a job, I’m good.’”

In 2013, Villamagna began working at Ball Corp. and remained there until 2016 when the plant shut down, displacing more than 300 fellow employees. While unemployed, Villamagna took time to visit family, but he recognizes that his drinking habits worsened a bit more. 

It wasn’t until six months into the lay-off, he recalled, that the unemployment union struck a deal with West Virginia to have the state pay for former employees’ continued education.

Villamagna took the opportunity to attend Eastern Gateway Community College and obtain his two-year associates degree in business management.

“The first year into my school, I really wanted to take things seriously and change my life for my two young daughters at the time,” he said. “So, I decided to give up the drinking and partying and all that stuff and focus on school, getting my degree and figuring out my next career.” 

After graduating in 2019 at the age of 44, Villamagna first entered the mortgage business but eventually got into clothing re-sale, having obtained a license to buy and sell merchandise.

He began working at a friend’s car lot in Wintersville. 

Around the same time, Villamagna had the opportunity to act as a background character in the TV thriller “Mayor of Kingstown,” which was filmed partly in Pittsburgh. He was a “day player,” or an actor who can be called in for filming on a short-term basis.

He would later act in another show, “American Rust,” also filmed in Pittsburgh.

However, Villamagna recalled, “I kind of wanted to focus on working for myself.”

“Always being into apparel, I kind of had the idea of wanting to start my own clothing brand,” he added. The idea originally looked like a streetwear brand, utilizing his father’s artwork. But he shifted into creating his own designs. After about eight months and countless hours of research, Villamagna decided to purchase his own equipment to start a T-shirt business, all while still playing music and acting. 

Named Riverview Tee Designs because he lives on the river, the business required an initial investment of about $8,000 in equipment to perform high-quality direct-to-film printing, all done in his home.

Since starting sales in February, the business’s meteoric growth in exposure and profits has been “insane,” beginning with smaller businesses and now extending to larger schools and organizations.

Currently, Villamagna is working with a West Virginia small business association to formulate a business plan, with the goal of obtaining a business loan and expanding even further.

“My goal is to grow this business to a point where, eventually, I will hire and offer employment to people and be able to provide jobs for people in my industry to help run my company,” he commented.

Villamagna continues to act and play music on weekends at local restaurants and private events, and he cherishes the success he is seeing — the result of hard work. He noted that everything he has done has been to benefit his daughters, Grace and Sophia, in whom he has always tried to instill a good work ethic.

Additionally, Villamagna noted he is not an expert on everything and looks to other business owners for advice. Those connections, many of whom he met through music, have been a “real advantage.”

Never a fan of the traditional workday, Villamagna finds enjoyment in his new occupation, traveling to meet business partners and staying busy nearly every day with fulfilling orders. Reflecting on his own unorthodox path in life, Villamagna said that people expecting life, education and work to happen only in a certain sequence is “just not how it is.” 

In reality, he said, not everybody knows what they want to do right away, and sometimes — like for him — it takes some time to realize it.

“Life makes a change, you adapt,” he said. “I always found a way to adapt to society, which is ever-changing, and to continue to be successful in any of my entrepreneurial ventures.”

“Whether it’s selling clothes and shoes or doing the T-shirts — whatever the case may be — you adapt,” he concluded.