Hiram Russell
Hiram Russell, an IRgA Board member and owner of Blue Boy Document Imaging in Washington D.C., was elected president of the IRgA at the board’s monthly meeting on November 6. Russell is an architect by training, and he founded Blue Boy in 1989. (Click here to read more about his company.)
IRgA Executive Director Ed Avis asked Russell a few questions after he was elected:
Avis: How has business been at Blue Bloy the last year?
Russell: Overall businesses has picked up, maybe a good 5 percent more than what we did the previous year. Three new hotels have been built within walking distance and they are pretty major customer of ours now. We are doing menus and different kind of brochures and publications just for the hotels. And because of the hotels and other development in our neighborhood, there is lot more foot traffic, so we have three or four people at the front counter every 15 minutes. That's different from where it was five years ago. We've also participated in a lot of neighborhood and community events. That gives us a lot more exposure and has led to some new clients.
Have you made any changes internally that have helped your business?
We’re known for having a good reputation, and training our people is really important for maintaining that, so we’ve been focusing on that. We’ve also been improving some internal processes.
For example?
Customer intake is a big one. We want to make that a lot smoother. We want to improve how the files come in and how they are put on a server, how the actual work order is written. And we want to improve the whole production workflow, and make sure that we are not passing over any of the quality control measures.
How many employees do you have?
We have 10, and I’m the process of hiring two more, a chief operations officer and an accounting or finance person. Prior to our today's conversation, I had an interview at 10 and I have another one at three. I'm pretty excited about that. And I definitely plan on bringing some kind of marketing and sales person early next year.
How do you feel about the reprographics business in general, beyond your shop? Is there a future for reprographics?
Absolutely. The more you're focused in on the customer's needs, the better off you’ll be. Here’s an example -- Staples can do a wide format printing, but they can’t handle a customer who needs something sized or who needs pages in the right order of the different trades. You know, you’ve got the structural first, then you got architect, you got the mechanical, electrical, those type of things. It seems small, but it's a big thing. And how to bind it, you know what I mean? We are able to shift the image over so that once you bind it, you can still read the information on the side. Or half-size prints. Staples can’t do those things. For us it's just almost like second nature one because of our time in the industry, which kind of makes it kind of easy.
So absolutely, I do see it being a viable industry. And there are so many other allied services that go along with the repro. The repro is our claim to fame, but in this day and age, you really can't have all your eggs in one basket. I think everyone knows that.
What about any thoughts or any ideas of what IRGA should do in this coming year? Anything you want to change or do differently or do in addition?
Right now I’m collecting ideas. I'm open to any ideas that will really add value to the organization. (Click here to read the next article, which discusses some ideas and seeks member input.)