“Ohio recognizes local veteran-owned company” by Dayton Daily News

The Ohio Secretary of State’s office is recognizing a local, veteran-owned company.

Innovative Vending Solutions, of West Carrollton, has been included recently as one of the Secretary of State’s Ohio Business Profile honorees. In the month of November, the secretary’s office sets aside its business profiles to feature companies led by veterans.

Patrick McDonald, Innovative Vending Solutions (IVS) founder and president, is a U.S. Army veteran of Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom, who served from 1988 to 2006.

IVS began with an online T-shirt store that McDonald’s wife opened to provide a job opportunity for their disabled son Nick, who was bedridden due to Uchene’s Muscular Dystrophy, the company said in a statement.

After Nick’s death in 2007, the business was expanded.

As McDonald told the Dayton Daily News in a story earlier this year, McDonald found himself online, trying to find machines that could dispense T-shirts. The idea was simple: If a machine didn’t draw a decent business at one location, it could be moved to another.

The only options he found were in Japan.

“I thought, ‘Nobody else has them? Really? Am I on to something?’” McDonald recalled to DDN.

“Now, IVS is considered the leader in automated retail innovations with being an innovator in various applications including the first-ever Twitter activated machine,” the company.

IVS says it is the only vending company that is able to create a built-to-specification machine oriented to client goals. In the past, IVS has worked on technologies and applications with companies such as Wal-Mart, Sony North America, Twitter UK and Twitter US, IKEA and many others.

Most recently, the business developed the first-ever solar powered vending machine for a national bank.

“To be recognized by the Ohio Secretary of State is truly an honor,” McDonald said in his company’s statement. “For the state to not only recognize me as a veteran, but also IVS which was created during a hard time in our lives, well, there are no words. Simply, thank you.”

IVS today has about 25 employees, a spokeswoman said.