Quick Printing

OCT 2013

Quick Printing is the only business resource serving the quick and small commercial printing niche in North America. Quick Printing is the authoritative source for business information, emerging technologies, shop profiles and management insight.

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North Carolina printer continues to expand and increase sales. By Howard Riell D avid Pitts likes to joke that the reason he won the National Association for Printing Leadership's (NAPL's) 53rd Walter E. Soderstrom Award recipient this year was "lowered standards." But no one has ever mistaken Pitts for an underachiever. a member of a peer group called Print America. I've always been very open to a lot of exchange of ideas with other smart printers. And I've benefitted from that—I've gotten more back than I have put out there." Breaking Out Perhaps, but he must have received something: 2013 has thus far been what he terms a "breakout year" for Classic. Thanks to growth from existing accounts and having picked up a new and sizeable client, which Pitts prefers not to name, the bottom line this year is expected to grow by $17 million, to $75 million. He notes simply, "It's a pretty good year." Indeed, this has been a year of expansion for Classic, in a physical sense as well. The company merged with Belk Printing in January of 2011. "Our primary space at the beginning of the year was 180,000-square-feet," Pitts recounts. That company has added 58,000 square-feet for services such as material handling Pitts, co-founded Charlotte, NC-based Classic Graphics with business partner Bill Gardner in 1983, and under their leadership the company has grown from $65,000 to more than $75 million in annual sales. In the top two percent in the industry, Classic, an employee-owned company, has grown to 300 employees—a 64 percent increase in just three years. The firm has also been honored as an NAPL Management Plus Hall of Fame company. Pitts is also a former member of NAPL's board of directors. So what was the real reason? The association cites Pitts' willingness to share his knowledge with fellow printers. As he himself admits, "We have participated with PIA and NAPL and I am Bill Gardner and David Pitts, co-founders of Classic Graphics, are celebrating their company's 30th anniversary this year. Classic's lobby reflects the company's progressive attitude. 22 QUICK PRINTING / October 2013 and kitting. "We do a lot of complex kitting for these big customers. It takes up a lot of room and uses lots of people, and lots of conveyors, and lots of hands putting stuff in boxes. Because of the rapid growth, we basically ran out of space to handle all of the materials. We need more space for when we get one large order in or, even better, two large orders at one time. It's a lot more efficient now." Efficiency has always been a core concept at Clas- w w w. M y P R I N T R e s o u r c e . c o m

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