Growing up in Boston as the oldest of three boys raised by a single mother, Damien Vassall, BSBA ’01, didn’t know many people who had gone to college. That changed when his mom enrolled him in METCO, a program that places Boston kids in suburban schools. “Being able to leave the city gave me the chance to develop relationships with people I would otherwise not have met,” he says. “That really opened my eyes as to education being the path to great opportunity.”
After high school, he enrolled in Suffolk as an accounting major, and became the first in his family to earn a degree. Now he is vice president and chief financial officer at Williams Industrial Services Group in Atlanta, a construction and maintenance company that services power plants of all kinds. Vassall rose to his current executive position last year, after working his way up through the ranks for 12 years at the company. He attributes his success to persistence and long-term vision. “Oftentimes we are much too focused on the short term,” he says. “It’s important to have a longer view, recognizing that success not only takes hard work but also takes time.”
Vassall had an interest in business from a young age; he remembers the paper route he had as a kid, and the summer jobs he took to help ease the financial burden on his mom. He worked full time all the way through Suffolk, too, starting as a cashier at GNC, a health and nutrition company, and rising to become a store manager, prior to graduating.
“There were plenty of times I thought to myself, ‘Man, this is hard! Between studies and work, I don’t know if I can do this,’” he says. But encouragement from friends and family members kept him going. “They just always reminded me what I was working toward.”
Now Vassall is providing encouragement—and financial support—for a new generation of Suffolk students. He has created a scholarship for Suffolk finance and accounting majors, with preference given to Boston Public School graduates and residents of Dorchester, Roxbury, and Mattapan.
“I always thought, if I was ever in a position to be able to help someone else that had a path similar to mine, that I would love to be able to assist. When you are 20, 21 years old, it can be hard to think about your long-term plans,” he says, especially when you’re juggling short-term pressures like a full course load and a full-time job. “Having a good support system around you is so important, and I wanted to be part of that. I wanted to pass that forward.”
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Photography courtesy of Damien Vassall
FEATURES
| Fall 2022
By Jon Gorey
