It is hard to believe we have completed our first year as Mitchell’s Speedway Press. It seems like a just a few weeks ago we were moving from the old Mitchell Printing building into our new home at Burkle Street and merging Speedway Press into our company.

The problems with the phones (lack of), networking (we blew it up), and moving (over 70 years of history is a lot of stuff), seemed daunting at the time, but we did it, and we even found we all had a sense of humor, more patience than any of us thought we had, and we learned how to work as a team. Nothing could have prepared any of us for what lie ahead, but we forged on, and combined two powerhouses into one highly efficient print and direct mail source.

We hope that the transition for you, our customer, has been smooth. That was our goal at the beginning and we think we have made that happen. Over the past year, a lot of behind the scenes changes have taken place. We have installed faster direct mail equipment which is able to handle the new “Intelligent Barcode” (is anything ever intelligent when it comes from the US Postal Service?). This is state of the art stuff, the ink dries on any stock,( okay, not any, but almost any), and we can turn around your mailing project in 24 hours, with speeds up to 10,000 per hour – that’s race track speed baby!

In the prepress department, we went greener with a new plate system that eliminates film, silver and chemistry. No waste, no environmental impact, and we are now industry leaders in eco-friendly printing and recycling with the use, as always, of recycled stock (we were green when it wasn’t cool to be green).

The slow process of remodeling our new facility is killing all of us. The Burkle Street plant began as a Coca Cola bottling facility in 1929, and was converted into Speedway Press in the early 70’s, as you can see from the vast amounts of brown paneling (think Brady Bunch). The network was upgraded and while doing so, we found every type of cable ever invented, from Al Gore’s first internet connection to phone net. We upgraded to the current 1,000 base CAT 6, making your job fly from our front door through the press room and out the back door to you!

We re-launched the website www.speedwaypress.com (boy did it need it, like the cobbler’s son who has no shoes), and when you want to order print, you will have the capabilities with us that you won’t have with 90% of the other sites you visit, you can design online.

We don’t have to tell you how painful 2009 was, either for your business or businesses you worked with. We were scared to death at the beginning of 2009, undertaking this huge venture at a time when the economy was tanking. In doing our year end review, we were afraid to run the numbers, but found we hit every goal we had hoped for (making many local banks and lending institutions very, very happy). How, in the worst economy in our lifetime? We never stopped selling or marketing our company. When others retreated, we advanced forward. Could we afford it, absolutely not, but we knew without advertising no one would know we existed. It worked, and we had a great year.

Try it for yourself, set a marketing plan for this year and hold yourself to it (we know a great printer), it will work if your commitment is strong and continuous. Give us a call – we have phones now – and we will help you achieve it.

Thank you for standing with us, and let’s go forward to a great year ahead!