United Spinal Association has announced the appointment of Tom Aiello, president of March Marketing and an Army veteran living with spinal cord injury from Wheaton, Illinois, USA, to its board of directors.
Aiello, a West Point graduate, initially became interested in joining United Spinal’s board of directors through his knowledge of the organisation’s VetsFirst programme and its work to assist veterans with spinal cord injury and their family members.
Aiello is president and founder of March Marketing, an agency specialising exclusively in strategy, consulting, marketing, recruiting, public relations, social media, and word-of-mouth communications for products and services targeting military and veteran families.
“We are privileged to have a leader like Tom on our board of directors. His passion for marketing and keen understanding of the challenges faced by veterans with spinal cord injury will be of great value to our organisation as we take our mission to the next level,” says Joe Gaskins, president and chief executive officer of United Spinal.
Aiello, who was injured while in service as an Army captain, says, “While many are focusing on the interests of veterans overall, the needs of veterans with spinal cord injuries often goes overlooked.”
“As I learned more about United Spinal and their VetsFirst programme, I saw how they were on the edge of so many landmark advances for quality of life of all people with these injuries. For meaningful change to occur, it has to come through an organization like United Spinal that has this type of change in its DNA. That’s something I want to be a part of,” Aiello adds.
After graduating from West Point, Aiello served in the 1st Cavalry Division with deployments to Kuwait, Panama, and Korea.
Aiello received his Master’s in business administration from the Kellogg Business School. His prior positions include division vice president of Marketing at Sears Holdings; general manager and vice president of Marketing at Monster Worldwide and vice president, account director at Leo Burnett Advertising.
Throughout his career, he has assisted employers in hiring over 50,000 veterans and raised US$118 million for community programmes improving the quality of life for more than 110,000 military and veteran families.
