Lake County Press -- Armed to Compete

Lake County Press was founded in 1970 by Bill Clay and Bob Efinger largely as a printer of medical journals, partnering with a publisher. Johnson's arrival in 1976 resulted in a larger infusion of commercial work and, two years later, the three men bought out the company from its publisher partner.

While a general commercial printer, LCP has earned a sterling reputation for its work with the local ad agencies and design community as a purveyor of high-end annual reports. "Once you're perceived as an annual report printer by the design community," notes Russell Schoenherr, senior vice president and director of sales, "you have arrived. They're not going to question whether you can effectively print a job. What's really helped us is the work we do for paper mills. They put out the nicest, quality materials to show off their various paper grades."