Cameron Cruse - Cofounder of R. Riveter, Making Handbags to Hire Military Spouses

Due to her husband's military orders, Cameron Cruse landed herself in the middle of nowhere Georgia in 2011. She had just graduated with her Master’s in architecture but the hopes of building that career slowly faded. Soon after, Cameron met Lisa Bradley, her now business partner. Together they realized the challenge that they faced, finding meaningful employment as a military spouse. They knew this challenge was not unique to them.  They set out to build a company that would first provide some kind of income opportunity to military spouses, R. Riveter was born.

The mission came first and the product was decided afterwards. And today R. Riveter has grown its network of spouses or “Riveters” that are employed across the United States. Together they started created handbags, but that has grown to candles, gifts and more. They even offer an “heirloom” collection to transform your old military uniform, blanket or something else into a beautiful memory bag. In 2015 they opened a storefront in North Carolina. Shortly after they were featured on Shark Tank where they were able to gain an investor. The company continues to scale and grow to ultimately hire more military spouses. 

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Bob Louthan is a VMI Graduate, Army veteran, and executive with over 25 years of experience in mergers, acquisitions and private capital formation. He founded the VeteranCrowd Network to bring veterans and veteran-led businesses together with each other and the resources they need to prosper.