Granite Press:
Granite Press in Westborough, Mass., looks like just another small printing company, one stitch in the nation’s economic fabric of millions of small businesses, but this growing multi-color sheetfed printing company represents much more. Its brick and mortar, its equipment and paper, its people and commitment all embody the American dream of its owner and president, Carolino Candido.
Carolino acquired a small press and began printing small jobs there. He worked for three years at a printing company in Framingham and for four years at a print shop in Milford. When he filled in one day to make a delivery to one of his employer’s clients, he handed the client an invoice for $600 for a printing job that took about four hours. “I saw that invoice, and the client’s acceptance of that bill, and I thought ‘I can do this. This is what I want to do.’” From that point forward, Carolino soon developed a plan to make it happen. First, it was printing small jobs in his parent’s basement for several years. He then formed Granite Press in 1993. He bought a corner lot not far from Route 9 in Westborough in 1996 and built his own building. He plans to demolish a home that is also on the property adjacent to his business and expand his building from the current size of 5,000 square feet to 10,000 to 12,000 square feet in 12 to 14 months. The blueprints are already done. He is considering investing in two additional presses, a multi-color sheetfed press and possibly a small web press. The future looks bright for Granite Press. The guy who always came through “He’d print during the day, and then go to work on the afternoon shifts,” said Granite Press Vice President/General Manager Bill Donahue. “He continues to provide printing to some of his earliest clients.”
“No matter the circumstances, the requested turnaround time, or the details of the job, Candido developed a reputation as being a very reliable printer,” Donahue said. “That’s a reputation that has stuck, and it really has been a key to his success and the growth of his company.” Donahue’s appointment as vice president/general manager is an indication of Granite Press’s rapid growth. “Candido realized his business was growing to the point where he needed someone to help with different aspects of the business. That’s where I come in,” Donahue said. A key priority for Donahue is new business development, but the general manager is also tasked with administrative oversight of the company’s eight full-time employees, job planning and scheduling, financial accounting, marketing and more. “We’re at a key time in the company’s history,” he said. “In fact, we’re looking to Printing Industries of New England to see how PINE can help us continue to grow and keep our costs down.” Finding a niche and making it work
Much of Granite Press’s work comes from the retail sector, high education institutions, manufacturing companies, advertising agencies, financial services firms, biotech companies and non-profit organizations. The company prints a lot of multi-color glossy advertising inserts that end up inside The Boston Globe newspaper. Granite Press serves customers throughout central and eastern Massachusetts from Worcester to Boston, and all points in between, both north and south as well. Donahue said the company has an on-time delivery rate of 99 percent. “Our business philosophy is to get the work in, produce it right the first time and get it back to our clients within one to three days,” the general manager said. “We meet our customers expectations. Providing service today — whether it is printing or something else — is all about performance. “Some business leaders talk about ‘nurturing’ client relationships,” he said. “We believe the best way to do that is to constantly meet their expectations and exceed them. It’s really as simple as that. If we keep our clients happy, give them quality work when they want it, at a fair price — to us that is nurturing client relationships. Candido built his business through his own sweat equity with that philosophy in mind and that is the philosophy we will follow to continue to grow Granite Press in the future.” Keeping things private He attributes that in part to the investment of two used pressed in the late 1990s. Burgeoning work presented a delightful challenge to Carolino; he needed more printing capability. While many printers fell victim to buying brand new presses during the flush times of the late 1990s and worried later about finding work to fill the equipment, Carolino had the opposite and a more desired scenario. He had the work, but not the equipment.
Carolino traded in his original two-color Miele press — the one from his parent’s basement — for a used Heidelberg Speedmaster in 1997, a year after moving into the new building. Two years later, he bought a second used Heidelberg press. Both are 40-inch sheetfed presses and both have perfecting ability. Then came the Heidelberg five-color GTO. “It seems like we run these presses forever,” Donahue said. “They never stop.” With a small workforce, Donahue and Carolino easily manage overhead and operating expenses. Employees like it because there is ample opportunity for overtime. One employee worked 90 hours one week in December. Morale is high. The newest employee has been with the company two years. Employees join the staff and stay. With steady work, it was only a matter of time before Carolino addressed a film-based workflow. Out went stripping. Out went Carolino’s office. In 2001, Granite acquired a Fuji platesetter and a Rampage RIP. With production space a premium, Carolino had no choice but put the platesetter smack in the middle of what was his office. The spot where the sheetrock was cut away and wooden studs removed was obvious. Donahue said that’s another indication of the need to expand. He vowed the wall was to be fixed, as soon as the crew catches their breath from production work. Another area addressed recently is binding and finishing. A fair amount of work is shipped out, but a saddle stitcher was added recently that resulted in work inside work. With tight working quarters, Granite Press has little floor space for paper storage. As a result, paper deliveries twice per day are becoming more common. “We’re tight for space as you can see,” Donahue said as he walked sideways through a narrow aisle between paper and equipment. “But this is all reflective of how Candido runs his business. He’s very conservative and plans carefully. With the success of Granite Press, and the company’s future outlook, being slightly cramped is not even a minor inconvenience.”
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A recent
naturalized citizen of the United States, Candido emigrated here with
his family in the 1970s from his Portugal homeland. Although he worked
at two separate printing companies for nearly seven years following
his high school graduation in 1985, he hatched his dream of owning his
own printing company in his parent’s basement a year after high
school.
Donahue,
who joined Granite Press last October, has known Carolino professionally
for years from working at other printing companies in the region. “I
used to send work to Candido, and he was the guy who always came through.
Run lengths
range from as small as 500 pieces to 250,000 pieces for the sheetfed
press. In early December, Donahue said they were planning to print two
jobs that had 1 million pieces each.
“We
still have pent up demand from our existing clients,” Donahue
said. “It’s a good feeling, and it allows us to do some
future planning and forecasting.”
About
the author: John Scibelli is editor of New England Printer
& Publisher and director of communications for Printing Industries
of New England. He can be reached at 508-804-4113 or by 
.
