M&R has introduced a new video series about successful screen printers, available online at www.mrprint.com/success.
There are thousands of ways to get into screen printing—and thousands of screen printing success stories. “Screen Printer Success Stories” is dedicated to bringing their stories to light. Those stories range from the bar owners who bought a hole-in-the-wall screen printing shop without knowing what a squeegee was to the unemployed college grad who read an article about screen printing on a flight to a wedding and was soon printing on his parents’ porch.
“M&R equipment has been a part of tens of thousands of screen printing success stories, and we thought it was time to share some of those stories with the wider screen printing community,” said Joe Abreu, M&R’s Director of Advertising and Marketing. “Many of the most successful screen printing operations had humble beginnings. When you look at where those businesses are today it’s tempting to assume that they began with previous industry experience, a carefully thought-out business plan, and ample cash reserves. But then you interview a former pizza shop owner who’s a screen printer today only because he picked up one of his wife’s employees and happened to asked about the strange looking equipment in the employee’s garage.”
Added M&R Video Producer Ryan Detwiler, “Although every screen printer we’ve interviewed so far has had a unique origin story, they all seem to have some things in common: drive, determination, resiliency, and optimism. And every one of them puts customers first with top-flight quality and on-time delivery.”
One of the interviews is with Dave Filip, co-owner and production manager of Bimm Ridder, which was wiped out during the catastrophic flooding in Cedar Rapids, Iowa in 2008. “How they battled back against overwhelming odds is inspiring,” said Abreu.
Dave Filip also mentioned how he would go to trade shows every chance he got and attend as many seminars as he could. “Dave said he would go to the same seminar more than once because he could always learn something new,” said Detwiler. “And we think aspiring screen printers can learn something new from these videos.”
