By Ed Avis
COVID has presented challenges for every reprographics firm over the past year, and California’s Fresno Reprographics – which joined APDSP in February -- is no exception. But that company’s owner, Don McDonald, is not a stranger to challenges – he launched Fresno Reprographics during the Great Recession of 2008-2010!
McDonald attributes his successes to his 30 years of experience in the industry. “I was fresh out of high school in 1991 and got a job running the plotting department for Western Blueprint,” he explains. “Back then it was C4 and Versatecs. I worked there until 1996 and then the opportunity came to join Central Valley Reprographics, which was a new company. We had the area’s first Océ 9800, which helped transition the Valley from blueprints towards plain paper copies.”
McDonald worked at Central Valley Reprographics for over a decade, and then, like many successful reprographics firms during that time, the company caught the attention of ARC. The latter company was in the midst of its acquisition spree and snapped up Central Valley.
“I managed the company for a couple of years under ARC ownership, and then decided to part ways right in the middle of the Recession,” he says.
Despite the bad timing, McDonald launched Fresno Reprographics. Other blueprint firms went out of business at about the same time, so he took the opportunity to onboard their best staff members. Success in reprographics is often built on good relationships, and with those hires, McDonald had a lock on client relationships.
“We competed with ARC throughout the Fresno area, and our relationships really helped,” McDonald says. His efforts succeeded: “Then ARC closed up and left this area about six years ago.”
Fresno Reprographics’ work was primarily traditional reprographics in those days – construction documents, spec books, and the like. Looking to the future, four years ago he bought an HP PageWide printer to add a color dimension to his business, and now does a decent amount of color CAD reproduction. In 2019 he broke into the display graphics market by adding an HP R2000 flatbed latex printer, digital cutter, and more recently, a Canon Colorado 1650.
“With the new capabilities, we’re doing construction signage, political signage, banners, a whole new array of products,” he says. “We also are handling work for interior décor and branding, with a focus on ADA signs, which we make in house.”
McDonald’s success at launching a company during the Recession gave him the experience and tried and true strategies to weather COVID. He picked up a few new clients, such as local hospitals that needed COVID-related signage, while also growing the department through job-site signage. He was also able to use his digital cutter to create acrylic shields for school desks.
Looking forward, McDonald anticipates growing his color business over traditional reprographics. Color CAD work, for example, has grown slowly but holds promise.
“It comes down to having color CAD stay economically priced to get them to shift over,” he says. “We’re doing a lot of mixed sets, with monochrome and color pages. Builders are shifting to digital permit sets, but still require color sets on the job site. You have to price it right so there’s not too much sticker shock.”
Regarding color signage, McDonald says while he’s now competing with some local sign businesses, servicing his existing client base provides much of his color work. While he implies he’s not the “hard sell” type of salesperson and likes to grow his business organically, it makes sense that he’s growing his color work amongst the AEC community.
“We started with our existing customers, but now we’re picking up new clients in new areas, too,” he says. “Traditional print is not like it used to be, so we want to grow our color department and find new clients.”
Staying ahead of trends and anticipating market needs has been paramount to his past and current successes, and McDonald is positive about how his unique approach to his market’s print needs will propel him towards the future.