Rich’s Keys & Locks—

A Business Where Helping People Is Key

By Kaaren Valenta

Rich Vallinaggi likes to help people, so when the opportunity presented itself in 1992 to become a locksmith, he did not hesitate to take a new career path. He later founded Rich’s Keys & Locks, LLC, as a mobile unit, and then last year opened a shop at 111 Church Hill Road in Sandy Hook Center.

“I was strictly mobile until I opened this shop,” Mr Vallinaggi said. “I carry everything and anything that I can think of on the van.”

Rich Vallinaggi offers both residential and commercial locksmith services, which include lock repairs and replacements, lockouts, rekeying, decorative hardware, and high security locks and safes.

A Connecticut native, he moved with his family from Kent to New Milford, and followed his father into the trades, doing commercial construction and eventually becoming an in-house carpenter for Pitney Bowes. When the company decided it needed an in-house locksmith, he volunteered.

“I took the long-distance learning course offered by Foley Locksmith Services,” he said. “Then after a few years I decided that I wanted my own business.”

When his parents moved to Florida, he purchased their home in New Milford and ran his locksmithing business out of his van. In March 2004, he expanded by buying out Gardner’s Lock & Safe of Danbury when its owner retired.

“I needed a place, someplace to put everything without being cramped,” he said. “I looked from Monroe to Danbury, and decided that Newtown would be a good location because there isn’t another locksmith in the area.”

He found a spot in the lower level of the rear of the building at 111 Church Hill Road, where a computer services shop previously was located. The shop is only a short drive to the home of his fiancée, Debra Appley, whom he plans to marry in the spring. Although Sandy Hook resident Ellen Adriani usually staffs the shop when he is on a call, it is Deb Appley’s voice on the locksmith’s answering machine.

“We’re a blended family,” Ms Appley said. “I have a daughter, Katie, 10, who attends Reed Intermediate School, and a son, Justin, 6, at Sandy Hook, and he has a daughter, Jennifer, 9, who lives in New Milford with her mother.”

Mr Vallinaggi says that he can handle any project, from installing a lock to retrofitting an entire house.

“I can do anything with architectural hardware on it, right down to matching the hinges and pulls on the kitchen cabinets,” he said.

He stocks all types of padlocks, combination locks, deadbolts, window locks, auto steering wheel locks, and all types of accessories. “I mostly have such brands as Schlage, Arrow, Baldwin, Quickset, and Emtek, but I can get almost any brand,” he said. “I also have a variety of safes, both fire-rated and nonfire-rated, for home and office use. I will also install them, bolting them down so they can’t be easily removed.”

A member of the Newtown Chamber of Commerce, the Better Business Bureau, and the Associated Locksmiths of America, he gives senior citizens a break. “I feel good when I can help someone like the elderly couple who were locked out of their home,” he said. “I’ve donated a lot of things to Ashlar for their silent auction.

“If someone needs help, I will help them,” he said. “I always like to help people. I usually don’t do automotive lockouts because of the cars’ new electronic systems, but if a child is locked in the car, that’s a different story.”

The tiny metal tag that comes with a set of keys is usually all that is needed for Mr Vallinaggi to make a new key even if the original key is lost, so it is important to keep that tag, he said. Some automobile keys, however, now are embedded with computer chips so they are only replaceable through the auto manufacturer.

Rich Vallinaggi enjoys collecting model railroad equipment, but with his expanding business, he does not have much time to pursue the hobby. “If I’m not in the shop, I’m in my mobile van,” he said.

Rich’s Keys & Locks is open Monday through Friday from 9 to 5 and Saturday from 8 to 12. For more information, call 426-3984.