About Bob

I’ve been in the graphic arts and printing industry for nearly 28 years. Everyone I know in this business has a “story” to tell about how they got into printing. I call mine,

“A 12 pack of Oly“.

After finishing my degree in Sociology at the University of Hawaii I took a job as a bartender in Waikiki. At the time it seemed like the logical career choice after college. From there it was four years at a major hotel chain in food and beverage – also in Waikiki – the beach hotels and bars made for an excellent place to study “societies” and the social aspects of relationships. Actually it was just a fun place to work.

I got serious about my life and took a position with a market research company whose primary method of collecting data was survey research using printed questionnaires. Four to twenty 8.5 x 14” pages photo-copied and stapled in the top corner. The company used thousands of these forms every month.

Part of my responsibilities included the purchasing, delivery and disposition of the questionnaires. I found a vendor in the same building as ours – price was good and he could meet our deadlines.

Everything was printed on a big Xerox 9200 – state of the art, fast, automatic and almost fool proof  (anyone could run it he used to tell me) – and often I did. I got to learn how to operate some of the other equipment in his small upstairs shop and, while my questionnaires were printing, we’d talk story and if it was toward the end of the day, usually have a beer or two.

On one Friday evening he was finishing a print run for us and we had some time to kill. While it was running, he opened a fresh 12 pack of Olympia beer.  We started to talk and he told me about his other store that he was thinking about selling. He and his wife wanted to concentrate on just the one store and he wanted to sell the other.

Well, it only took a twelve pack to convince me that I could do this kind of business and we struck a deal. I borrowed some money for a down payment and became the proud owner of my own printing business.

At first it was only a photocopy shop but it wasn’t long before I bought my first AB Dick single color press. Flew to Maui to have someone teach me how to run it. And before long I was a printer, a plate maker, a folder operator, a camera operator, a stripper, graphic designer, typesetter, and the delivery driver. All part of owning your own printing  company.

The equipment that followed is now part of a dying or dead lexicon. Words like – darkroom, film, photo-typesetting, glass font wheels, waxers, gallies, vertical cameras, ruby-lith and art boards were new to me then. – and mostly gone now.

The company grew quickly, tripled in volume in about two years, then doubled that twice more in two more years.

After 11 years in the instant-retail printing business I moved back to the mainland and started my commercial print education and career. Up to this time I hadn’t seen anyone print color bars on a sheet. What was that about?

The rest of my resume is like this: A production planner, a bindery supervisor, a shipping manager, an estimator, a production manager and finally the envied position of all – SALES. I am a senior account manager with GSL Fine Lithographers in Sacramento California.

All on a Twelve-pack of OLY.