SS ETR
02-27-2007, 06:18 PM
HISTORY OF GCI:popcorn:
GCI was born out of a long heritage of printers. Tom Bedacht’s grandfather and his great aunt started it all in 1928 by forming a company called Spee-D Letter Service. It consisted of a typewriter and a mimeographing machine. Located in two small rooms in the old Palace Theatre Building on Sixth Street in downtown Cincinnati, they practiced their trade for companies large and small. Some of the clients were Kroger, Fechheimer Bros. Uniforms, Cincinnati Terminal Warehouse, and The Hebrew Union College.
In 1945 Casper Bedacht, Tom’s grandfather purchased this sister’s half of the tiny business and struck out on his own. Recalling having to move his company to the Coney Island Building at the corner of Sixth and Main Streets, he said that he moved the whole company in the backseat and trunk of his car, in one load.
In 1952 Casper moved Spee-D to a loft location on the Becker Building at the corner of Seventh and Sycamore Streets, still in downtown Cincinnati, and expanded his business to include doing “hand work” for greeting card companies. Such work included gluing feathers and other objects on the greeting cards. In 1956 the business was again expanded with the winning of a contract with Emery Industries, Sanitone Drycleaning Division. Picking and packing point of sale material along with advertising material and custom shipping those items to the various Sanitone franchises.
Since many of the advertising items required the Sanitone franchise “imprint” of their particular store location and telephone number, Casper decided that he needed to install letterpress printing presses to accomplish this task. He purchased a small printing company and hired its owner to run the “letterpress department.”
During the summers between grades in high school, Casper’s son Jerry worked for Spee-D delivering orders in the downtown area on a bicycle. Since most of Spee-D’s customers were in the downtown area in those days, a bicycle made for a great delivery vehicle. Jerry befriended the manager “letterpress department’, and soon was learning how to hand set type and help run the letterpress printing presses.
After high school, Jerry attended college for one year and then went to work in the shop fulltime. In 1962, a good friend of Casper’s and also a customer of Spee-D’s passed away suddenly. Although Casper was only 57 at the time, the death of his friend caused him to think of his own mortality and on January 1, 1963, sold Spee-D to Jerry and LeRoy Stoffer, Jerry’s father-in law.
Spee-D remained status quo during the sixties increasing the amount of sales of “offset printing”, and decreasing the amount of mailing and hand work that Spee-D had become known in and around the Cincinnati area for. In 1972, LeRoy Stoffer suffered a heart attack and it was decided that he should retire. At this point, Jerry, Casper’s son became the sole owner of Spee-D. The name was changed to Spee-D Letter Printing and Litho.
In 1975 a 20,000 square foot building was purchased on Florence Avenue in Cincinnati, and the business was moved to that location. The name was changed again to Ohio Valley LithoColor, Inc. This was done to better reflect the type of business that the company was doing. By this time the company had grown to about 25 employees with annual sales of approximately $450,000. During the next 5 years, growth continued, and employees were added, a sales force was established and as 1980 rolled around, sales had reached $1,900,000.
Again, growth forced Ohio Valley to purchase a 13,000 square foot building next door on Florence Avenue. A “five color web” offset printing press was purchased. This was a very high risk for a company with less than $2,000,000 in sales because that one press alone cost almost $1,000,000. Jerry was never one to be faint of heart when it came to spending money, (the bank’s money) to expand the business.
Fortunately, business flourished and in 1985, Jerry moved Ohio Valley to an 82,000 square foot plant in the industrial park on Industrial Road in Florence Kentucky. As Jerry’s sons graduated from school they became members of the Ohio Valley team. All three, Tom, Steve, and Jon worked at the plant. That plant was expanded by 27,000 square feet in 1987 and more presses were added at that time. In 1990, a new 5-color full size web press was installed at a cost of a little over $5,000,000. With sales of just over $21,000,000 in 1991, the family decided that it was time to cash in and when an offer from the Neilsen family came along, it was decided to sell Ohio Valley.
Today, the Ohio Valley plant is still in operation, having been expanded several times, and is now part of RR Donnely Company, the largest printer in the world.
In 1992, Tom left what was then the Ohio Valley plant and started a large format printing business that is now known as GCI Digital Imaging. Serving a market that requires small quantities of full color point of purchase materials and the like, GCI is a leader in cutting edge technology.
The fourth generation of printers is now getting his feet wet with printing ink, as TJ, Tom’s son:cool1: , is now part of the GCI team. Since 1928, the Bedacht family has been serving printing needs for first the Cincinnati area, then the nation from the Cincinnati area.
NOW IT IS TIME FOR ME TO TAKE OVER AND MAKE SOMETHING HAPPEN!!!
THIS ISNT AN ADVERTISMENT JUST SOMETHING TO READ....
We are moving! GCI is going to be located in MT. Healthy, OH. We are going to try the retail storefront to see how that works. We have expanded our product line in many areas, we are still going to focus largely on the large format digital printing end.
Edited by Admin
GCI was born out of a long heritage of printers. Tom Bedacht’s grandfather and his great aunt started it all in 1928 by forming a company called Spee-D Letter Service. It consisted of a typewriter and a mimeographing machine. Located in two small rooms in the old Palace Theatre Building on Sixth Street in downtown Cincinnati, they practiced their trade for companies large and small. Some of the clients were Kroger, Fechheimer Bros. Uniforms, Cincinnati Terminal Warehouse, and The Hebrew Union College.
In 1945 Casper Bedacht, Tom’s grandfather purchased this sister’s half of the tiny business and struck out on his own. Recalling having to move his company to the Coney Island Building at the corner of Sixth and Main Streets, he said that he moved the whole company in the backseat and trunk of his car, in one load.
In 1952 Casper moved Spee-D to a loft location on the Becker Building at the corner of Seventh and Sycamore Streets, still in downtown Cincinnati, and expanded his business to include doing “hand work” for greeting card companies. Such work included gluing feathers and other objects on the greeting cards. In 1956 the business was again expanded with the winning of a contract with Emery Industries, Sanitone Drycleaning Division. Picking and packing point of sale material along with advertising material and custom shipping those items to the various Sanitone franchises.
Since many of the advertising items required the Sanitone franchise “imprint” of their particular store location and telephone number, Casper decided that he needed to install letterpress printing presses to accomplish this task. He purchased a small printing company and hired its owner to run the “letterpress department.”
During the summers between grades in high school, Casper’s son Jerry worked for Spee-D delivering orders in the downtown area on a bicycle. Since most of Spee-D’s customers were in the downtown area in those days, a bicycle made for a great delivery vehicle. Jerry befriended the manager “letterpress department’, and soon was learning how to hand set type and help run the letterpress printing presses.
After high school, Jerry attended college for one year and then went to work in the shop fulltime. In 1962, a good friend of Casper’s and also a customer of Spee-D’s passed away suddenly. Although Casper was only 57 at the time, the death of his friend caused him to think of his own mortality and on January 1, 1963, sold Spee-D to Jerry and LeRoy Stoffer, Jerry’s father-in law.
Spee-D remained status quo during the sixties increasing the amount of sales of “offset printing”, and decreasing the amount of mailing and hand work that Spee-D had become known in and around the Cincinnati area for. In 1972, LeRoy Stoffer suffered a heart attack and it was decided that he should retire. At this point, Jerry, Casper’s son became the sole owner of Spee-D. The name was changed to Spee-D Letter Printing and Litho.
In 1975 a 20,000 square foot building was purchased on Florence Avenue in Cincinnati, and the business was moved to that location. The name was changed again to Ohio Valley LithoColor, Inc. This was done to better reflect the type of business that the company was doing. By this time the company had grown to about 25 employees with annual sales of approximately $450,000. During the next 5 years, growth continued, and employees were added, a sales force was established and as 1980 rolled around, sales had reached $1,900,000.
Again, growth forced Ohio Valley to purchase a 13,000 square foot building next door on Florence Avenue. A “five color web” offset printing press was purchased. This was a very high risk for a company with less than $2,000,000 in sales because that one press alone cost almost $1,000,000. Jerry was never one to be faint of heart when it came to spending money, (the bank’s money) to expand the business.
Fortunately, business flourished and in 1985, Jerry moved Ohio Valley to an 82,000 square foot plant in the industrial park on Industrial Road in Florence Kentucky. As Jerry’s sons graduated from school they became members of the Ohio Valley team. All three, Tom, Steve, and Jon worked at the plant. That plant was expanded by 27,000 square feet in 1987 and more presses were added at that time. In 1990, a new 5-color full size web press was installed at a cost of a little over $5,000,000. With sales of just over $21,000,000 in 1991, the family decided that it was time to cash in and when an offer from the Neilsen family came along, it was decided to sell Ohio Valley.
Today, the Ohio Valley plant is still in operation, having been expanded several times, and is now part of RR Donnely Company, the largest printer in the world.
In 1992, Tom left what was then the Ohio Valley plant and started a large format printing business that is now known as GCI Digital Imaging. Serving a market that requires small quantities of full color point of purchase materials and the like, GCI is a leader in cutting edge technology.
The fourth generation of printers is now getting his feet wet with printing ink, as TJ, Tom’s son:cool1: , is now part of the GCI team. Since 1928, the Bedacht family has been serving printing needs for first the Cincinnati area, then the nation from the Cincinnati area.
NOW IT IS TIME FOR ME TO TAKE OVER AND MAKE SOMETHING HAPPEN!!!
THIS ISNT AN ADVERTISMENT JUST SOMETHING TO READ....
We are moving! GCI is going to be located in MT. Healthy, OH. We are going to try the retail storefront to see how that works. We have expanded our product line in many areas, we are still going to focus largely on the large format digital printing end.
Edited by Admin