Southeastern Printing — Reeling in The Business

ONE WORD that would best describe Stuart, FL-based Southeastern Printing is unique. Located along Florida’s “Treasure Coast,” the ISO 9001-certified company boasts the full range of printing services expected from a commercial printer, and some that might surprise those not familiar with the firm.

“In recent years, I’ve been invited to cocktail parties where the invitation read that the attire was ‘casual elegance,’ ” explains Don Mader, Southeastern Printing’s 35-year-old president. “Even though the phrase is a bit paradoxical, I feel it represents how our company is perceived in our marketplace. We want to be known as a company that is fun to do business with, yet takes continuous improvement very seriously.”

Some of the fun stems from its themed employee meetings and sales contests, such as a birthday party—including a photo cake and party hats—to commemorate Benjamin Franklin’s 300th birthday last year. Also, weekly top performers during Southeastern’s 2006 “Rock ’n Troll—Casting for New Customers” sales contest were lauded with the Fish of the Week Award—including a stuffed toy billfish.

But it is certainly not all cake and parties for the 82-year-old company’s 230 employees. Through a series of five acquisitions since 1999 and strong organic growth, the printer has brought its annual sales tally up to the $32 million plateau. Southeastern employees stay busy providing customers with small- and large-format sheetfed offset printing, flexography, digital printing, as well as full prepress, finishing, mailing and fulfillment services.

Mader cut his teeth in the printing industry 16 years ago in the silk screen realm, reproducing fine art on t-shirts for retailers. From there he formed a prepress house servicing both screen and lithographic printers.

“Southeastern was one of our larger clients in the late ’90s and they were looking for support in their prepress division while switching over to computer-to-plate production,” Mader recalls. “They also were searching for succession management. We realized that we could play well together and I took over as president in 2001. My family and I completed the purchase of the company from its previous owners by the end of 2004.”

By design, Southeastern Printing serves two very different markets in two very distinct ways. Mader notes that the commercial sheetfed lithography division is extremely diversified with no one customer representing more than 8 percent and no one industry representing more than 25 percent of the division’s revenues.

“Given our size, that is somewhat of an anomaly, therefore our sales and marketing efforts are tremendous,” he remarks. “Conversely, our flexography division is myopic in scope with heavy customer concentration; we solely service the beverage label segment of the packaging industry. Our sales and marketing efforts are very targeted and economical for this segment.”

To handle the varied needs of its customer base, the company has invested heavily in the latest technology and equipment. Its prepress department supports both Mac and PC platforms with a Kodak Prinergy PDF workflow including a SEP Connect Web portal. Digital proofing, computer-to-plate capabilities, Staccato screening and MetalFX ink technology are also available.

“In 2006 we invested heavily in our front-end workflow led by a new Kodak Creo Magnus platesetter with upgrades to our Prinergy workflow,” Mader points out. “We implemented Staccato screening, which we now run almost exclusively.”

The traditional sheetfed pressroom is home to four small-format machines—two 18˝ Heidelberg Quickmaster 46s, an 18˝ ABDick, and an 18˝ Ryobi press. For larger format work, the company boasts a 10-color, 40˝ Heidelberg perfector; an eight-color, 29˝ Heidelberg perfector; and a pair of six-color Heidelbergs with aqueous coating units. Recent additions include an automated pile turner, as well as a solvent recovery system.

Southeastern’s flexo division services big names in the beverage world, providing labels for notable brands such as Coke, Pepsi, Dr. Pepper and 7-Up. It uses a stable of three Comco presses.

Mader has forged a joint venture with a package printer in Lerma, Mexico, to leverage cost and logistical efficiencies. Southeastern is calibrated to send locked-down digital files to its Mexican partner, which is especially important since Southeastern is a veteran of three major hurricanes over the past few years.

“Local customers have empathy for the situation, but servicing nationwide customers in the beverage industry is a different animal,” says Mader, noting that the company now has a field-tested disaster recovery plan. “We know what it takes to get back up and running—it was baptism by fire.”

Southeastern also offers full binding, mailing and fulfillment services, having recently added foil stamping, embossing and automated collating capabilities, and a new high-speed signature folder to the mix. It plans to install a new Wohlenberg perfect binder in the first quarter of this year.

“There’s no doubt that growth in commercial printing is coming from new or additional value-added services,” Mader maintains. “Media companies challenge executives to move dollars away from traditional forms of advertising and marketing collateral. To help combat this, we have embraced a lot of the new specialty papers, coatings and printing techniques that are being offered today. If we can help our customers differentiate themselves with their printed products, they may be more apt to keep more of their advertising dollars earmarked for print.”

Digital Decisions

Another way Southeastern is preparing for the long-term is by offering short-run, fast turnaround variable data printing products through its digital division, Blue Water Graphics.

“You have your head in the sand if you don’t think that digital printing is going to be a big part of the future,” Mader says. Located across the street from the main plant, Blue Water Graphics houses a Kodak NexPress digital color press with a NexGlosser coating unit.

Speaking of the future, Mader plans on embracing the two phenomenons that he feels will challenge every business in every industry—the flattening of the world and a move to more environmentally friendly technologies. It is important that companies look beyond borders when analyzing business threats and opportunities, he says. He also feels the market will pay for sound environmental stewardship.

“I want to continue to focus on our culture which, to me, is the personality of a company,” Mader continues. “My hope is that people would use two words in describing our company’s personality—smart and fun. We have come a long way in the past few years, and that says a lot about our employees.” PI