"Glenn Hinman, president of Colby Poster Printing Co.
My grandfather was a supervisor who could actually run letterpress. In the early and mid 40s he was running a shop and he was well known. I know that because in the 70s and 80s, a lot of these printers who were still alive, would let me know, “I knew your grandfather, he was the best.” In the 40s he worked for a guy right down on Venice Blvd and one day they got busted for trying to make money. It turned out it was not him or the crew. But back then, you were a high profile person if you bought cotton and linen paper with the red and blue fibers because that’s the type of stock you used to make money. So in other words, if you bought certain stock in those days a red light would go off. They were keeping an eye on it and said, “That paper is for stocks and bonds, why does this little shop want it?” As he was getting busted and taken away, my grandfather did everything to save the shop, and keep the guys going, but it was over at that point. My grandfather and my grandmother sold the stock they had in Standard Oil but still had the list of client. So they set up a place right around the corner, about 200 yards from here that ended up burning down. He then bought this place that turned out to be a heck of investment. You wonder what was this place in 1946, maybe $10,000? Now its’ something between $1.2 and $1.5 million. So that’s how my grandfather started. Then my dad came on board and we were born into it. I started working here in 1976, Lee started in 1984 and Larry, my youngest brother, came six or eight years after Lee.
We used to do bus sign and billboards for movies like Planet of the Apes, 2001 Space Odyssey, The Death Pool with Clint Eastwood, House of Wax 3D when they had the very first 3D. I always remember that last one because that guy stuck it to us and it was down there so I had to look at it. In the 80s we used to do things for U2, White Snake, Motley Hatchet, Bruce Springsteen… hundreds and hundreds of them. My grandfather did work for the Beach Boys when they were kids, Steve Wonder and even bands from the 50s.
Now it’s getting tougher and tougher, also with out-of-state competitors and non-unions who can go much cheaper. Unions have been a great thing to us and we have all worked well together, but right now we can’t confirm with three unions that we can an employ them and and do our due diligences for two years. This was our best chance for a good year and it was just ok. Next year is an odd year and odd years are much tougher, there are very few elections. The even years are the big ones and every four you have the super elections. But this year we didn’t see the big numbers.
But this can be a thriving business. What I am really hoping for is the interest of the big unions. It’s not only a fantastic investment of a property, as it’s a third of a mile from all the freeways, but also there are three unions already here. So there is the foundation of a great business, but we are just burnt out."
No comments:
Post a Comment