When Sam Varn was first offered a job in the awards and personalization industry in the 1970s, he didn’t think of it as a career. The 22-year-old had just sold a motocross racetrack outside of Brooksville, Florida, and the owner of the company he bought trophies from offered him a job.
Building A Legacy
As Awards4U Founder Sam Varn Retires, His Son Takes the Helm of the Family Awards Business
By Barbara Platts
(Originally printed in the March/April 2025 issue of Insights.)
When Sam Varn was first offered a job in the awards and personalization industry in the 1970s, he didn’t think of it as a career. The 22-year-old had just sold a motocross racetrack outside of Brooksville, Florida, and the owner of the company he bought trophies from offered him a job.
“I had sold my racetrack. I had a pocket full of money. I had a motorcycle,” says the founder and former owner of Awards4U. “I thought, now what?”
Sam immediately enjoyed the job—the mix of engineering and creativity when it came to making awards, as well as the people he worked with.
“It was something I liked doing, I was successful at it, so I just kept going,” he says.
About a decade later, after getting married and having two sons, he saw an opportunity to start his own awards business and bought Tallahassee Engraving and Awards in 1987. At the time of sale, the Tallahassee-based company had two employees and $100,000 in sales annually. Today, nearly 38 years later, that company—now known as Awards4U—has 42 employees and $5 million in sales annually. With Awards4U in such good shape, Sam retired at the end of 2024 and sold his company to son Justin Varn.
“This is the house that Sam built,” Justin says. “It has a solid foundation.”
That solid foundation came from years of clever marketing and networking, a dependable staff, four acquisitions, and a strong focus on customer service.
“Take care of your customers, take care of your staff, and everything else will take care of you,” Sam says.
Within a couple years of buying his business, Sam got involved with APA, becoming a Chapter Director and then getting elected to the Board of Directors. During his career, he tallied nearly every award available. Within APA, he won the Branch Leadership Award (1990), Founders Award (1995), and the first-ever Speaker of the Year Award (1999, again in 2012–13). He received the President’s Award in 2005 and was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2010. He also served as board president (1994–95), and his business, Awards4U, won Retailer of the Year in 2006. Beyond APA, Sam was named Florida State University's Entrepreneur of the Year by the Jim Moran Institute for Global Entrepreneurship, and Awards4U won Small Business of the Year twice from the Greater Tallahassee Chamber of Commerce.
However, he doesn’t talk often about these recognitions.
“I never take credit,” he says. “The only credit I take is for hiring the right people. I am most proud of the team we have. They are dedicated to each customer like they are the only one. They support each other and do what is necessary to meet our customer needs in a very deadline-driven environment.”
Passing the Baton
When Justin was four or five years old, his dad took him to the shop one Saturday. An employee was putting plaques together in the back room. Justin followed his dad into the room, put his hands on his hips, looked at her, and said, “One day, I’m going to be your boss.”
Sam loves telling that story. But, while he always thought it would be ideal to pass his business to one of his sons, the decision was not an automatic one.
“He had to learn the business,” Sam says of Justin. “He was young, so he had to mature. He had to learn how to handle responsibilities within a business, not just having a job but having additional responsibilities.”
Owning the family business one day was always on Justin’s mind.
“I knew from a young age that this is where I wanted to be,” the now 38-year-old says. “I just didn’t know at the time what that was going to look like.”
After Justin graduated from college, he moved to south Florida with his wife and got a job with a company in corporate AV.
“One of the best pieces of advice my dad ever gave me, when I came out of school, he said, ‘You need to go to work for somebody else. You have this safe space here, and you can always come back, but you need to go and work and experience life outside of here.’ I think that helped mold me into the person I am today,” he says.
Justin stayed with that company for five or six years and then decided to move back to Tallahassee and work for his dad around 2010. He immediately got engaged in all facets of the business and, within a few years, became part of the management team.
“Justin has always been one that wasn’t afraid to get his hands dirty,” Sam says. “So he would be on the sales floor helping the customer, go downstairs to put something together, go into the shipping department, pack a box, then deliver something, take boxes to the post office, whatever needed to be done.”
Even though Justin was an integral part of the business, there was no guarantee he would eventually take it over. Sam says, at one point, he had another offer on the table that he considered, but it fell through, and Justin was still interested.
“When I’m growing the company, I’m not thinking about selling it or getting rid of it or transitioning to anybody. I’m just trying to grow the company,” says Sam. “But there comes a point in your life where you think, ‘Okay, now what am I going to do with this?’ My options were to sell it outright or transition it to Justin.”
One reason Sam liked the idea of selling to Justin was because it ensured stability—protecting both the staff and the company from major changes. When Sam and Justin finally made the decision, Sam sat down with each of the company’s managers to tell them the news and ask them to share any concerns or excitement about the change. Then he would relay those messages, anonymously, to Justin.
“He wouldn’t tell me who said it. He would just say, ‘Hey, you need to work on this.’ And then I would just start working on whatever that was,” Justin says. “It was just this natural progression. We were able to work through all of that, and then everybody felt a bit more comfortable.”
Getting Involved in the Industry
Sam got involved with Awards and Recognition Association (now APA) shortly after buying his business. He said what pulled him in initially was the openness and friendliness of the members.
“My service to the association connected me with so many people that were bigger than me, smaller than me, wholesalers, retailers, suppliers. It really gave me additional perspective on the industry,” Sam says. “I got to make friends with suppliers and understand more about how the industry worked. That helped to guide me in my business growth because I could call somebody that was running a $20 million company as a friend and just say, ‘Hey, I got this going on.’”
Sam was really happy when Justin decided to get involved with APA.
“I knew he would make new friends, be exposed to more people at all levels of the industry, and it would help to give him some really valuable perspective,” he says. Today, Justin is the president-elect of the APA’s Board of Directors and will be the president after the Expo in 2026, making him and Sam the first ever father-son presidents in the association’s history.
“That’s a personal point of pride for me,” says Sam.
Justin remembers the first time he went to the Expo in Las Vegas, it helped him see the industry through a different lens.
“I saw that I really wanted to be a part of this and make a name for myself, so that’s what I’ve tried to do,” he says.
The Importance of Family
At Awards4U, family is both a value and a priority. This is not just in the case of Sam and Justin. Many employees are related, with husbands and wives, siblings, and parents and children working together. In one case, five out of six members of a single family are part of the Awards4U team.
“A lot of companies won’t hire relatives, and we thrive on that,” says Sam. “By and large, we have very good stability in our staff. There are a lot of blood relations.”
That stable staff is part of the reason Sam wasn’t worried about Justin taking over.
“I’ve been very fortunate to have nurtured and acquired a really outstanding staff,” says Sam. “So Justin has a great support [system] around him.”
As for Justin, his growth as a leader mirrors Sam’s approach to running the business: embracing strengths, learning from mistakes, and fostering open communication.
“I know I’m going to make mistakes. When we started, I told our management team, ‘I’m not the smartest person in the room, and I respect that. We all bring unique strengths to the table and have to lean on each other. You’ll rely on me to lead the company forward, but at the end of the day, communication is key—just like in a marriage or friendship. Without it, we won’t get anywhere,’” Justin says.
Although Sam is no longer going into Awards4U every day, those in the industry will be happy to know he’s not fully retired. He recently took a part-time job as the executive director of Award Associates of America, a member-owned organization of more than 65 leading award manufacturers and retailers in North America. He goes into this new position—and part-time retirement—feeling confident in the new leader and owner of Awards4U.
“I’m especially proud of Justin. He’s gone from this immature kid that wants to run the company but doesn’t have a clue to now he’s grown into a much more mature young man with a much clearer vision of what he wants out of this,” says Sam. “He will take the company to another level.”