Photo: Rick Morgenweck, Fleet Street Remarketing CEO
June 25, 2025
Rick Morgenweck wasn’t looking for a new full-time gig – not by a long shot.
Afterall, he had been a senior executive and co-owner of a medical device company that had sold to Private Equity for a pretty penny in 2021, affording him the opportunity to ponder his next step.
“It wasn’t really a retirement level event,” said Morgenweck. “But I was pretty lucky that it gave me the time to figure out what I really wanted to do next.”
As a Fortune 500 executive and serial entrepreneur who’d spent his career helming a wide variety of companies, Morgenweck hit his groove building and running a Vistage chapter – a peer-to-peer organization for CEOs that helped dozens of high performing business leaders up their game and improve their companies. According to Morgenweck, “Vistage afforded me the great privilege of working very closely with some of the best CEOs and business owners in Florida.”
Steve Bender
As a case in point, Vistage is where Morgenweck met Steve Bender, owner of Fleet Street Remarketing. The two struck up a fast friendship, collaborating on several Fleet Street initiatives through their Vistage relationship. Then, one day, Bender asked Morgenweck to help him draw up the job requirements for a new CEO at Fleet Street.
Bender recalls, “We found a few good candidates, even went through the interview process with a couple of them, but then I realized that I had already been working with the perfect person for the role.”
That’s when he asked Morgenweck to take on Fleet Street’s CEO role himself. The only problem? Becoming the CEO of a services company in an industry – Fleet – he had only just discovered really wasn’t on Morgenweck’s radar.
“Frankly, it was a lot to take in, really something I’d never thought about,” said Morgenweck, a former Coast Guardsman who had grown up trapsing the globe as an Army brat.
Flattered, he thanked Bender but asked for a little time to think it over.
After all, he was getting tremendous satisfaction from working with the members of his Vistage group and taking on the role of CEO in an industry he knew little about was a tall order.
Then – one day while out walking his dog – it hit him.
Perhaps it was time to take on a new challenge in a completely new industry. One where he would be out of his comfort zone and forced to learn new ways of doing things.
A week later, Morgenweck and Bender met for lunch and – as the story goes – the rest is history. Today, Morgenweck has been Fleet Street’s CEO for just under a year – a role he has fully embraced. Not only has he learned about a new industry – he’s learned a lot about himself.
“I’m not going to lie, a big part of me wasn’t sure I was doing the right thing,” said Morgenweck, “but I really like Steve and anyone who knows him (which is a lot of people in fleet) knows he can be a pretty convincing guy.” Bender speaks about fleet with the excitement of a charismatic preacher. The work they had done together to that point, the trust, and the fact that they have different but complimentary skill sets is a big plus – all this just made it easy to eventually say “yes.”
Wasting little time, Morgenweck fully immersed himself in the fleet universe by attending the 2024 AFLA conference in San Antonio. The event gave Morgenweck – who’s managed cross-functional teams for billion-dollar companies across the globe – a crash course in building fleet relationships. He also had the opportunity to learn about the industry in real time by watching his Fleet Street colleagues – some of whom are among the best-known and most connected personalities in fleet.
Since the conference last fall, Morgenweck has jumped into his new duties with both feet and has been busily working hand-in-hand with the Fleet Street team to refine the company’s offering. And while he won’t “spill the beans” about what the team has planned, he believes a commitment to building trust will be key to both Fleet Street’s near- and long-term success.
Morgenweck said he has been especially impressed with Fleet Street’s sales team, featuring Key Accounts Director Mark Sade, a longtime Bender associate, as well industry veterans Kathleen “Khaki” Butzner and Debbie Struna, a former Fleet Manager and one of the most connected people in fleet. Morgenweck said the group has forged a “special bond,” and that his goal is to support the team’s “curious nature.” That and their ability to deliver on their timing and value commitments should keep Fleet Street on their growth path.
“I’ve been fortunate to run a lot of great teams over the years,” said Morgenweck. “What I’ve learned is that if you get the right people, agree on where you want to go, give them the tools, the trust, and the latitude – you can get anything done and that’s what we’re doing at Fleet Street; building more collaborative partnerships within fleet so we can create more value for our clients.”
For his part, Bender – who’s been a popular figure in fleet for over 20 years – is thrilled to have an executive of Morgenweck’s caliber on the team. “He brings a wealth of knowledge and insights we hadn’t been focused on at Fleet Street,” said Bender. “Rick’s skill set work perfectly in tandem with what we do, and I’m just really excited to see where we can take the company together over the coming years.
Today, Morgenweck is working closely with the Fleet Street team to grow its industry-leading offering to even greater heights by bringing a fresh perspective and identifying new markets the company hopes to begin penetrating soon. More than anything, he thinks the key will be to hold on loosely and give his team the room to grow and the power to succeed.
On a personal level he says he is most excited to meet people in the industry and is focused on building more collaborative partnerships by employing Fleet Street’s four cornerstones:
Trust, Together, Service, and Delivery.
“Fleet is an ecosystem built on relationships, and relationships grow based on trust. We’ll do that by providing great service and by delivering on our commitments, but those are just table-stakes. For me, strong business relationships are built by always striving to help our clients and partners, even when it might not make sense in the near term but having faith that in the long term we will win together.
“Obviously, if you would like to talk about remarketing, getting the highest possible value from your capital assets, in the fastest time, with the least hassle, please reach out to me!” said Morgenweck.
“But aside from remarketing, I’m still trying to learn who’s who in the zoo and what you all do. Please don’t hesitate to connect with me and have a conversation. I am very curious about what you all do, and even more so about what we can do together!”
Rick Morgenweck is CEO of Fleet Street Remarketing and an experienced executive making his way in a new industry. To collaborate with him, reach out to [email protected] or by going to www.fleetstreetusa.com.
