HOF 05 Surviving Day by Day -- Donald Samuels

By Erik Cagle

Senior Editor

Truth be known, Donald Samuels never had it made. The managing partner of Pictorial Offset in Carlstadt, NJ—who heads up the third generation family owned company with brothers Gary and Lester—has made a prolific career out of living day to day.

The Samuels brothers found themselves thrust into a leading role in 1980, when their father, Jay, died in an automobile accident. This came on the heels of a move from New York City to New Jersey and the purchase of a new press that did not work all that well. Reeling from the loss of his father and facing the real possibility of bankruptcy after losing two key accounts due to the bad hardware, Don Samuels was ushered into the world of print management.

It mattered not if Samuels was ready for the task. The challenge was certainly willing to engulf him.

"Basically, our long-term plan was to be in business the next day," Samuels recalls. "Making the payroll every week, paying our suppliers. . .everything, day by day, was a challenge.

"We had no choice but to step up. There were no options, only decisions that had to be made without hesitating. Any wrong decision could have been fatal to the business."

Twenty-five years later, Samuels still adheres to the day-to-day philosophy, though the straits of today are hardly dire for the 2005 Printing Impressions/RIT Printing Industry Hall of Fame inductee. The company had but 28 employees and $1 million in annual sales during its touch-and-go period in 1980. Now there are more than 300 employees helping Pictorial generate in excess of $80 million in annual revenues.

Better Days Ahead

Had Samuels been able to forecast such a bright future, perhaps he would've slept better at night during the hard times. But had he not lost sleep, it stands to reason, the future might not have been a sunny one from the company's standpoint.

The company came into the Samuels family by way of the Great Depression. His grandfather, Harry Samuels, loaned money to a struggling printer. When that printer was unable to pay back the money to Samuels, he instead handed Samuels the reins of the printing shop. Debt paid in full.

It took a little luck for the shop to stay afloat in the early years. The biggest shot in the arm for Harry Samuels came when a business acquaintance inquired as to what type of work the printing shop would take in, for his company was starting a line of magazines. The man in need of a magazine printer was none other than Henry Luce, the co-founder of Time magazine.

"(Luce) told my grandfather, 'I can give you plenty of business,' " Samuels remarks. "Basically, from 1938 to 1953, Time Inc. was our only client. We sort of grew out of adversity and challenges."

Samuels vividly recalls making sales visits at Time Inc. with his father during school breaks as a youngster. It was an entirely different business culture, one lacking the formality of today's pacts. Business was done with handshakes, as opposed to lawyers, according to Samuels.

"It was a different world, a different environment, much more of a humanistic point of view than a purely professional point of view," he says.

Following Printing's Path

It was during those formative years that Samuels decided to follow in the career footsteps of his father and grandfather. The idea of going into real estate or becoming a Wall Street financial tycoon was lost on him. The only choice, in his mind, was a career in printing and a place in the family business.

Samuels chose the right path to that means, enrolling in the Rochester Institute of Technology. He attained an undergraduate degree there and enrolled in its business school. But something happened en route to that MBA.

"I got a phone call from my dad, who said if I didn't come back to the family business now, there might not be a family business to come back to," Samuels says. "It was 1974, there was a recession and the business was struggling. So I decided, gee, this is the best time to come back to the family business."

(Though Samuels never did return for his MBA, he has taken executive education programs at the business schools of both Harvard and Stanford.)

A Bite of the Big Apple

Day by day and week by week, Samuels and his brothers have pushed forward in the highly competitive New York metro marketplace. Samuels prefers to surround himself with co-workers he deems as being smarter than he is and who bring different elements to the company table. Hiring the right people to do the right jobs, he stresses, is especially important.

When it comes to his views on the current state of competition in his back yard and beyond, Samuels turns to Thomas L. Friedman, New York Times writer and author of the book, "The World is Flat," for perspective. The book looks at, among other things, the impact of global outsourcing on a changing world.

"There's a quote in the book that basically says, every morning a gazelle wakes up in Africa, having to outrun the fastest lion," Samuels says. "And every morning a lion wakes up and has to run faster than the slowest gazelle. Otherwise, he'll starve.

"That's basically what we face. We have to be more nimble and more competitive than our biggest and strongest competitors, which are now all publicly held companies. And we also have to outrun and be more nimble than the smallest shops."

One person who is fully aware of Samuels' survival skills is Bob Weil, president of the distribution group at Gould Paper. Weil has known Samuels for roughly 30 years and finds him to be a person taken at face value.

"Don is very bright, very sharp and highly aggressive," Weil says. "He's upfront, honorable and a terrific salesperson. Don listens well and understands his customers' needs."

Joe DeLise, vice president of promotional purchasing for Lancôme, is a fan of Samuels' forward thinking, but old-fashioned, values, referring to him as "my digital dinosaur." DeLise finds the combination appealing.

"He has that futuristic thinking, but also the old-fashioned values I'm familiar with," notes DeLise, who met Samuels 20 years ago. "The one word that would describe him is commitment—to his family and the industry. He has one of the few family businesses still doing well in the New York metro area, which is not easy.

"I really appreciate his commitment to quality, having the equipment and people in place to do the job and achieving customer satisfaction, despite the flaming balls we throw at them."

Samuels is active in industry and business organizations. He is a member of the New York metro chapter of the World Presidents' Organization, has chaired or served on many committees within the Young Presidents' Organization, and is a member of the Chief Executives' Organization. He founded the Jay P. Samuels/Pictorial Offset Nathaniel Rochester Society scholarship at RIT.

Honors Keep Rolling In

Just this year, Samuels and his brothers were awarded the New Jersey Corporate Philanthropic award. The award endowment was given to The YCS Foundation, the largest provider of behavioral and health services to children throughout New Jersey.

Donald and Faye Samuels have been married 24 years, and they have two children in college this fall; a son, Ian, and daughter, Jennifer. Ian is attending the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania. Jenni is attending Washington University in St. Louis.

Aside from his family, Samuels' top passions are sailing, scuba diving and skiing. He enjoys sailing in Maine and on Long Island Sound. Samuels was scuba diving on the Great Barrier Reef last March when a hurricane sent him packing early. "So I flew around the world for one day of diving," Samuels laments.