Hi Everyone. This is Aaron Montgomery, formerly of U.S. Screen, Garment Decorating Supply, and I am now with Coastal Business Supplies, Inc. in St Louis, MO.
I started in this industry about 12 years ago with U.S. Screen after spending some time in the log home industry (family business) and also in the offset printing industry. I worked for 10 years at U.S. Screen in Arizona. I held several rolls, but lastly as the VP of Sales and Marketing. It was a wild ride and I learned a ton and was fortunate enough to meet some incredible people along the way. After U.S. Screen was shut down, I started my own company called Garment Decorating Supply to be able to provide film, ink and software for screen printing film output. Again the people that I worked with made this a wonderful experience even though starting a business in the middle of the recession was a very difficult venture. Then about a year ago (July 2010) I made a connection with the Pickering family, spent a week in St. Louis getting to know them and decided that I was going to leave Arizona and start a new chapter with Coastal Business Supplies in St Louis, MO (Thanks to David from Lawson for the recommendation!) A very close friend of mine, Terry Combs, has taken over GDS and I have moved on to work with transfer paper, sublimation, cutting plotters, heat presses, sign and transfer vinyl and much more.
Coastal has been a great place for me and again I am a lucky guy to be able to work with such a wonderful group of people and have great customers and partners to interact with. I have a passion for marketing and try to stay involved with social media and other avenues for interaction with our customers.
I have had the great fortune of learning about just about every type of garment decoration over the years. I have also been able to see a lot of small businesses be successful despite having next to no capital, limited marketing budgets and time restraints. Our industry is very special because of the people and the hard work those people are willing to put into making their business a success. I have tried to take note of those things and occasionally post a blog or share some thoughts on twitter.
Admittedly, I don’t have nearly enough time to stay up on all of the forums as I would like, so please feel free to email me if you ever have a question. I didn’t even know this forum was around until I ran into Dot Tone Dan on twitter today. Looks like a great little community and I hope I can bring some value to the discussion. I’m looking forward to interacting with everyone.
