Joy and I were a part of a screen printing job shop in the late 1980s and early 1990s. In the early summer of 1993, Des Moines was drenched in the worst flood in its history. At the same time, our involvement in the screen printing shop ran dry and came to an end. In hindsight, I guess it was a “watershed moment.”

 

We had a chance encounter with someone who offered to help finance our business start-up. A one paragraph contract – scrawled on a spiral notebook – indicated he would loan us money and we’d pay it back. Three signatures, a handshake, and we were off!

 

From our former job, we learned mug and glassware printing was the most successful part of the screen printing business, so that’s the route we chose. At that time, we used over-glaze inks which required firing at 1200°, so I engineered and built a 30-foot conveyor-fed kiln while we set up the rest of the infrastructure. Joy helped with the books and we set up a nursery/playroom in our office for our two young daughters.

 

We purchased the best machine we could find for screen printing on cylinder shaped items. Back then, we could do a reasonably good job with logos and designs of up to 3 colors. It was just the beginning of the computer graphics revolution, before the more complex logos we see today. (#throwbackthursday) We felt 3 colors would cover most of the work we anticipated.

 

One of our first breaks was a t-shirt printer, right up the road from us, who was selling to a national market. He had been turning down mug orders and wanted to know if we could do what he needed. I eyeballed his example. His designs required 5 colors and extremely close registration.

 

With a machine that only went up to 3 colors, I told him, “Of course! That’s exactly the business we are looking for!”

 

I know what you’re thinking, but I wasn’t wrong. I just didn’t know how we’d manage it, yet.

 

As I sat at my desk, pondering his request, I fiddled with one of the accessory pieces from the machine we purchased. Our new machine had been improperly assembled. We couldn’t catch a break, could we? That’s when the spools in my head started spinning. The improper assembly was the key to doing these orders!

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After a slew of refinements and a patent, we have taken our processes to the ultimate limit. Today, we engineer and build almost all of our equipment, including the most accurate short-run mug, glassware, and bottle printing equipment in the world.

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Our equipment isn’t our strongest feature, though. Our core of hardworking people (and one playful dog) can reproduce any logo on almost any glass or ceramic drinkware item or bottle. In the last 10 years, we have not shipped a single time-critical order late, either! It’s not just myself or Joy or our charming office dog; it’s our people who are empowered to do anything necessary. We are proud to take care of our customers.

We are now ready to provide the wine, beer, and spirits market with our amazing expertise.  We look forward to working with you!