|
 |
 |
From Humble Beginnings In Dad's Garage to World Class Printing
The Coudray Serigraphics Story
It all started way back in 1973 when 19 year old college student Mark Coudray took $200 from his saving account and entered the world of entrepreneurship. Like many screen printing businesses it's first home was a crowded garage. In fact, it was so crowded, Mark could only use the garage door to hang the air dried screen prints. With ingenuity, perserverence and alot of hard work, business prospered.
Through the '70's business grew rapidly. Mark ran the fledgling company full time while attending Cal Poly University as he obtained his degree in Graphic Communications. In 1977 the first automatic press was purchased and that opened the door for both local and large corporate accounts.
The '70's were the hey day of Rock 'n Roll printing and much of the initial success came from concert shirts produced for SLO based Pacific Alliance, an Anti-Nuke social organization dedicated to stopping the proliferation of nuclear power. Some of the groups and artists we printed for included Jackson Browne, Bonnie Raitt, Carly Simon, James Taylor, The Greatful Dead, Karla Bonoff, and Linda Ronstadt. We still have some of those legendary shirts, preserved for over 25 years and in pristine condition! One of those legendary shirts made it to the cover of Life Magazine as it reviewed the 1970's, The Decade of the TShirt.
The business continued to grow throughout the '80s until NAFTA was enacted. In 1990 the company direction changed somewhat. A second company, Coudray Graphic Technologies was formed to investigate, develop, and implement emerging digital technologies for the screen printing industry. The roll of CGT was to improve quality and practices to make companies more competitive.
The largest screen printing companies and many of our larger clients were struggling to stay onshore as business moved to Mexico and Central America. Suppliers, screen printers, and large clients began to retain Mark as a consultant to help them improve their productivity and quality. Intially this was done to help keep the companies in the US. Serigraphics moved from being a medium sized, high volume printer to an incubator for optimized practices.
Besides the economic changes, huge technological change was afoot as well. This was an exciting and innovative time. The graphics community was moving from analog to digital. Computer graphics and software development offered exciting new opportunities and challenges. Serigraphics was in it from the beginning. Our work in the area of digital color, color separation, ink development, mesh and frame, and print equipment engineering yielded significant contributions to the industry.
During the '90's and up to 9/11 Mark was traveling extensively worldwide working with printers, suppliers, and end users developing and implementing what are now established techniques and practices, in the process racking up 3 million air miles. With the prospects of continued political instability and security, Mark cut back his international travel and has focused on domestic production once again.
Like every crisis, opportunity lies within. Being forward looking and alert to changing conditions, the new millenium represents exciting potential for the redesign of past practices. In late 2005 we began testing a new business model that uses a radically different approach to delivering custom screen printed t-shirts. We tested throughout 2006 with a very limited number of new clients and doubled the size of the company. In the process we increased our fulltime employees to 19 from a core group of 3 only one year earlier. Our production increased from 30 - 60 development jobs per month to over 350 print runs per month.
With the new business model proven and working well. In late 2007 we completed a major $1,000,000 expansion. In January 2008 we moved into our newly remodeled 16,000 sq ft facility and adding 10 color and 14 color production lines to our existing 12 color line. We've added sophisticated Computer-To-Screen capability to shorten production time. Best of all, the new business model is geared specifically toward short to medium run sizes making it possible to deliver very high end, complex quality to even the smallest local projects. This new capability is delighting our clients by giving them new design and decorating possibilities that have previously been beyond their reach.
|
|
