Family print shop to reach $1 million sales benchmark

BOULDER — Silver Star Printing expects to hit $1 million in sales for the first time this fiscal year ending in March. An important financial benchmark for any business, it is especially pertinent to one whose typical money drain comes from equipment upgrade. In addition, the company’s overall profits are steady. According to Silver Star Printing Founder Stan Schnabel, the only debt for this family-owned venture is paper.
“I wouldn’t buy equipment until I had cash to pay, and I’ve always bought machines at auctions. That’s the way to do it. Buy the machines for a little and make a lot out of money out of them,” he said.
The 15-year-old print shop went though just about ever major change a business can before reaching its present level of success. Its location, management and its very name were different in November of 1996 when Schnabel and his daughter, Becky, set up shop in the family garage at 1357 Sumac.
The print shop got its start as Golden Bell Press with one printer, a one-color AB Dick 385. The business shared a 2,800-square-foot space with the antique cars that Schnabel refurbished. Then, for about two years, Schnabel moved into a rental space in Heatherwood for a partnership with a print shop called Mountain Printing. When the partnership dissolved, he returned to the garage, named the new print shop business Silver Star Printing, enlisted the help of his daughter, Becky, and operated out of that location for eight years.
Today, Silver Star Printing, 2810 29th St., Boulder, is managed by daughters Becky Schnabel, 37, and Debbie Thornholt, 39. It includes seven employees, five presses, a plate burner, a binder, an image setter and a Macintosh computer.
Silver Star Printing is unique for attributes other than its garage origins. The entire family learned on the job. Stan Schnabel got his first job in a print shop in Trenton, Neb. out of high school. When he moved to Denver in 1958 he continued training at Martin Marietta (now Lockheed Martin Astronautics), at Paragon, a now-defunct print shop in Denver, and for L.L. Ridgways Printing in Denver, eventually transferring to Boulder as assistant manager.
It was while Schnabel was at Ridgways that Becky began her on-the-job training.
“I had a part-time job there after school stapling and collating booklets that (contained) instructions for making sleeping bags and vests. I started in the business when I was 15,” Becky said.
Her father taught her how to run a press, she said, also showing her everything else about how to run a printing business. In the early days of the business, Wanda, wife and mother, did office work such as accounts payable. Thornholt came on two years ago to help run the office.
The parents have since both gone into semi-retirement.
“A lot of people turn their business over to their kids and it goes bankrupt,” he said. “Becky and Debbie are very good at selling and customer service. They’ve run Silver Star Printing for two years now and are still making money like we used to.”
Efforts to market Silver Star Printing are fairly relaxed. When your father has been in the printing business in the area for 35 years, word-of-mouth advertising carries heavy clout.
“We have great word-of-mouth sales,” Debbie said. “That’s why we are so successful. We don’t need a salesman.” Schnabel continues to spread the word to his carpet bindery customers, she said.