Wisconsin Printers — Printing Capital of the USA

LADIES AND gentlemen, your attention please. PRINTING IMPRESSIONS magazine is about to announce it has anointed a state as the printing capital of the United States.

This decision was not arrived at easily. In determining which of our 50 was deserving of such rich accolades, we compiled a cracker jack team of experts: Sales and M&A guru Harris DeWese pored over 10 years’ worth of financial statements and cross-checked them using various sorting criteria. Chris Colville, a recently retired Consolidated Graphics senior executive, provided full analysis based on company balance sheets.

The research team was a Who’s Who of the printing industry. Jim Andersen, head honcho at IWCO Direct, provided in-depth statistics on which states earned the best postal discounts. Cenveo king Bob Burton pointed out the states that suffer from excess capacity and which companies have the leanest production processes. Roy Grossman at Sandy Alexander identified the companies and states that are the greenest in terms of energy consumption. And Jeff Sweetman of Trend Offset Printing determined which companies enjoyed the most effective national distribution centers.

Why Wisconsin?

Economists were consulted. National labor statistics were scanned and cross-referenced. We ranked the states by sales, used proper adjustments to account for certain disparities in state economy sizes, factored in the sales per employee, and divided that by employee sales figures for all manufacturing sectors in their respective states. This gave us a printing industry percentage of the state’s overall manufacturing economy.

Not wanting the study to be merely based on cold calculations, we randomly selected 1,000 chambers of commerce and asked them about the perception of printing in their community and state. We read select works of Walt Whitman poetry and James Michener fiction, and found printing references. Then, it was on to the Guinness Book of World Records to see which states had garnered the most bizarre distinctions, like the most tattoos for a six-worker third shift. We even listened to every Three Dog Night and Uriah Heep album, but found their music to be less than timeless. So there were some dead ends.

When all was said and done, one state stood out as the clear choice to represent our union. First runner-up, should our champion be unable to perform the duties required as “Printing Capital of the USA,” is Illinois. And the winner is...

Wisconsin!

In the interest of full disclosure, it must be noted that the research methodology employed was perhaps not as thorough as stated above. It would not be inaccurate to say that a recent perusal of the 2006 PRINTING IMPRESSIONS 400 listing of the largest printers ranked by annual sales yielded 31 companies from the land of beer, cheese, brats, the Packers, Brewers, Bucks and Michael Kelso. That’s 7.75 percent of the list. And we find that pretty darn impressive.

And we’re not talking about $1 million or $3 million annual performers, either. Sure, the state has its share of them among its roughly 1,040 printing businesses. Some of the country’s largest and most respected firms, including privately held juggernaut Quad/Graphics, are nestled (maybe huddled is more accurate) in Wisconsin.

We have some explaining to do. Sure, why not Illinois, which plays home to Darth Donnelley and the Windy City? Well, that seemed too much of an advantage. Chicago’s “assimilators” actually tore away two of Wisconsin’s enduring print institutions—Banta Corp. (ranked eighth on the PI 400) and Perry Judd’s (ranked 32nd)—in building its annual sales past the $10 billion mark. And Chicago is one of the nation’s three largest cities.

Same goes for New York and California. Their economies are way too hulking, and they have the two largest cities: the Big Apple and Los Angeles.

Ranking the Competition

According to PIA/GATF figures, California, Illinois, New York, Pennsylvania and Texas were the top five states for printing sales, based on 2005 numbers. Ohio was ranked sixth, followed by our champion, then Minnesota, New Jersey and Massachusetts. Ohio is an interesting candidate, but lacks a great centerpiece company (with apologies to business forms printer Standard Register) like a Quad and has large cities in Columbus, Cleveland, Cincinnati and Toledo, while Wisconsin only boasts Milwaukee and Madison.

In fact, all six states ranked ahead of Wisconsin are in the top seven for population, according to 2005 U.S. Census figures. The smallest of the front group, Ohio, has 11.4 million residents. California tops with 36.4 million people.

Wisconsin? How about a meager 5.5 million residents, good for 20th in the nation. Yet, Wisconsin pounded out $7.3 billion in print sales during 2005, right on the heels of Texas (23.5 million residents) and Ohio.

According to Niall Power, president and CEO of the Printing Industries of Wisconsin, printing is the No. 1 private sector business in the state. Quoting PIA stats, Power notes that Wisconsin ranks seventh in shipments and employment, and 11th in number of establishments.

“The Germans came in and set up the allied printing business,” Power says. “We have a great work ethic and a long tradition in the industry. Our politics are liberal, but our work ethic is conservative. And not just in printing—we have some terrific companies in manufacturing. S.C. Johnson is one of the biggest in the world, and we also have Case Tractors.”

Competition keeps Wisconsin sharp in Power’s estimation. Minnesota and Illinois are quite robust; Chicago is undoubtably the biggest printing center in the country. It is easy to see why central states are at the foreground of the print pack—they have postal and distribution advantages, and a number of major paper and ink companies reside there. The nut these states divvy up is national in scope.

“We compete across the country, not just in Wisconsin,” Power says. “It’s surprising to me how far we extend, well beyond our borders.”

Wisconsin has the manufacturing firepower of a state double its population, and the numbers alone dictate that it belongs in a class by itself. But statistics tell only part of the story. We talked to some of the finest printers in the state to find out what we don’t know about Wisconsin. Check out the accompanying stories (on the following pages) to find out why there’s more to Wisconsin than beer, brats and cheese. PI