How did you get started?

[tonypep]

Everyone has a story. Please share if you like. I will hold mine back.
tp

[Sbrem]

I was working in my guitar teacher's music store, when it got extra slow, I was laid off. I saw an ad to "come learn our silk screening process" which I had the tiniest peek at in art class in high school. It was printing advertising on plastic phone book covers, and sealing the pockets to the cover with an electronic sealer. Stapled multifilament mesh, indirect stencils, vinyl ink. Left that to play music full time (see my little picture from '74) came close to starving, I didn't thanks to my girl at the time. One of the guys I had worked with at the phonebook company had started a t-shrit business, Chest Fever (from the song by The Band) and I ended up being their very first employee, as a printer. We had an ownership change about 5 years later and I stayed with them until '92, when I had the chance to start what I have now with my partner. Hoping to be out in about 3 years when I want to retire. We'll see...

Steve

ps. found a copy of my old company's write up in ink, inc. magazine many years ago, what a trip

[bimmridder]

We were sitting around drinking in our bar one night..............

[GraphicDisorder]

Started business doing truck renderings and cutting vinyl decals. Did it for basically food money. Hoped to just help with extra cash each month. First months sales were $1500, which blew me away. Couple months later I was earning more than my day job. Held on to that for a few years as I was able to juggle both. Eventually started doing embroidery on a single head and had a 4 color manual press from ebay. Upgraded to a 6/6 Vastex and added a 2 head. All this in my parents basement. Worked 12-16hrs a day 7 days a week. Rarely taking any days off. Been a hell of a ride. Moved to TN and bought our building and really grew this thing at abnormal rates from around 2010-17. Monday my new 18c / 20 station press gets installed next to the CH3D. I am humbled but proud at the same time.

[brandon]

Feels like a lifetime ago when I moved to Seattle from the Deep South. It was 1999. Started printing SubPop Records and the bands associated with it. 20 years later back in New Orleans printing for an insane amount of bands all over the world. Times flies when you are having fun!

[zanegun08]

I was working as a cook for Timberline Lodge at Mt. Hood and there was a guy I met who had a small clothing company which they printed out of their basement.  I ended up doing some art for them, and a website and then was moving to Portland with no job lined up while they simultaneously moved into a retail / shop space so I just started showing up.

As it turns out the guy was more of a weed dealer than a shirt sales guy, but I did end up working there learning from the ground up and was able to do lot of experimentation for about 6 years because it had a ton of flexibility and was a fun job until he got wrapped up for trafficking the wrong kind of product to the East Coast.

So then I moved to a little bit larger company for a while, which was union, and owned by a parent company.  However the manager was embezzling money and the parent company ended up closing up shop in the middle of the summer.  So out of a job I was on the search for a new home and ended up where I am now.

A larger company with a single owner operated place where the owner doesn't sell drugs or embezzle money to my knowledge so it has stability and I still get a ton of flexibility on experimentation, R&D, and get to work with cool clients from time to time and I've been here for around 6 years.

Wasn't planned but kinda just fell into this industry, I still enjoy making t-shirts, pull a squeegee or unload a press from time to time, love to learn and push the boundaries of what we can do on a finished good.

Now in Oregon you can definitely make more money selling tees than weed as it's not as flooded as a market.

[tonypep]

Well, things have a way. My Father passed away in Mount Hood where he tended his gardens and did volunteer work. RIP. Timberline is no joke.
My turn. When I was a young turk, I was accepted to a division of Yale University. Still in high school it was not easy, mostly hitchhiking the fifty miles home. The school was a lot like "Fame". Jazz band, and all. I left high school and went to work for  a machine shop, where I quickly learned that trade. Meanwhile the Summer Fest was coming up and the Printmaking division wanted to do shirts for the first time. They knew I had the ability to make a press and so I did. One color pink Speedball air dried on clothespins. Sold out on the first day. The bulb went off. I knew I could do something different.
tp

[tonypep]

We were sitting around drinking in our bar one night..............

Hahah most of us know that one!
tp

[tonypep]

And then then the bulb went back on. Things comes first circle and then come back.
tp

[tonypep]

What I meant by that was I took a lower paying job to do what I loved. Two years later, I met Richard Greaves.
tp

[Northland]

In 2002, I was at a Home remodeling trade show (window, siding, cabinets etc). There's a "Print-a-Press" sales guy there hawking his product (looking back at it, I realize he'd have zero chance selling his goods at a Screen printing tradeshow).
He calls me over to print a shirt and as I'm putting the white shirt on the pallet he says "$.97". I pull the first squeegee, he say's "that's a nickle". I pull the second squeegee, he say's "that's another nickle". He flash dries the shirt and say's "how much could you sell that shirt for ?" I replied "$8".  Fortunately the Press-a-Print set-up was outrageously priced..... like $25K ?   So, I avoided that pitfall.

Went home and did a YouTube search and it's been 17 years of learning the trade. I've had some fortunate experiences along the way, including the good fortune of picking up both an 8' conveyor dryer and BlueMax manual press for free !!  Well almost free, I repaired their main conveyor dryer (replaced a bad mercy contactor that controlled the bump flash).
I was never interested in printing full-time, mostly because I had a challenging & well paying job in the building trades.

[Nation03]

Took a class in high school with a table top press and wood screens we stretched ourselves with a hammer and string lol. Fell in love with making shirts and my teacher knew I had no plans for college. He knew a shop hiring a few towns over and I applied. Worked there and learned a ton more and even more of what not to do. Leased a shop package and put it in my parents basement. Eventually quit my day job in 2016 and haven’t looked back. Have a 6 color auto now. My ideal goal is to get a house with enough property to build a prefab metal building and essentially work from home.

[lancasterprinthouse]

Took a class in high school with a table top press and wood screens we stretched ourselves with a hammer and string lol. Fell in love with making shirts and my teacher knew I had no plans for college. He knew a shop hiring a few towns over and I applied. Worked there and learned a ton more and even more of what not to do. Leased a shop package and put it in my parents basement. Eventually quit my day job in 2016 and haven’t looked back. Have a 6 color auto now. My ideal goal is to get a house with enough property to build a prefab metal building and essentially work from home.

My story isn’t similar to yours but the end goal is. I worked in the offset printing industry out of college (went for graphic design and couldn’t find decent paying work) and eventually that turned into screen printing.

I was working at a print brokerage company after a few years of running a small digital shop and they were using this yahoo for their t-shirts that I would stop in and see once in a while to pickup a job. After a while I decided I wanted to get some of my own shirt designs printed so I sent them to him and went to pick up the first one because he said it would be done. Turns out it wasn’t done but he told me to hang on and he would printing. Hung around for 45 minutes and he handed me a bill for $120. I thought to myself, “this guy wearing sweatpants just made $120 in 45 minutes off me. Why can’t I do this?”. So I did. Worked the day job until days blurted into nights of printing and those nights blurred into mornings getting up for the day job. 5 years later my wife and I run a single auto and pump out quite a bit of volume.

We graduated from our apartment dining room table to a basement to our current setup which is a 1700 sq ft detached building on our property but our goal is to buy our neighbors acre and build a 5000sq ft pole barn and move into that in the next 2 years.


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[Croft]

Came out of college in 1990 as a technical Illustrator. that year was the begining of a recession I did end up getting a job at a screen printer as there designer and found I liked it . I left there 14 years later UGH basically running the place and doing stuff on the side as well . Started my own in my basement then built a shop on my property bought an auto then a few years later  moved into an industrial unit in town.

[Zelko-4-EVA]

i was 18 and working at a hardware store.  some guy came in about 100 times and kept buying tons of stuff... i knew the contractors/landlords and city guys that came in to get stuff - but this was an odd name.  we talked and he said that he was in the process of moving stuff up from a print shop near boston, and setting up the new location.  i filled out an application and got a job of reclaiming screens.  moved up to ink mixing.  started ordering supplies, fixing presses/dryers/handyman stuff... made recommendations on new equipment/supplies.  ive pretty much learned every job in production and written some training manuals for certain tasks.

two years ago we moved out of that location and into a 42,000 sq foot building.  i set up the new location - everything from finding contractors for electrical/hvac/plumbing to moving equipment...  the M&R program helped for placement of equipment... 

when i started with the company we had maybe 10,000 sq ft.  one Zelko TP-10, and a 6 color multiprinter through a Raypaul cureair 72".   we now have a 12 color Gauntlet 3, two 10 color Gauntlet 2, one Anatol trident and a 6 color sportsman E and 20 heads of embroidery. 

pic in the link below isnt me, its one of the owners.
https://www.fosters.com/news/20180715/dover-company-rocks-with-entertainment-merchandise