Samuel and Nicolene Wright with their son Raiden
By Ed Avis
Before Samuel Wright got into the reprographics business, he was, in his words, “a young naïve kid who did whatever it took to make a dollar.”
That drive led him to jobs making sandwiches at Subway restaurant, hoisting cartons in warehouses and driving delivery vehicles. The jobs were different, but with a common thread: in each position he was able to interact with customers.
“I always enjoyed working with the public and understanding that we’re all in this together,” Wright says. “I always enjoyed the concept of serving.”
About 23 years ago Wright landed a gig at a mom-and-pop reprographics company in Colorado. The position put him in regular contact with the public, which he enjoyed. He especially liked helping customers with interesting projects.
“Once in a while we’d get the little old couple with the World War II newspaper who wanted it scanned, cleaned up and copied,” he remembers. “I always liked helping people make their dreams come true.”
He worked at that reprographics shop for 15 years until 2016, when he determined it was time to strike out on his own. He racked up $5,000 in credit card debt to launch his business, Bolder Reprographics in Longmont, Colorado.
Why “Bolder” reprographics? His business is located near Boulder, Colorado, but that’s mainly just coincidental. Wright chose the name because he knew it was a “bold” move to launch his own repro firm.
Like most IRgA members, Bolder Reprographics’ client base is primarily the AEC business. However, Wright says more clients have come from the construction end of that acronym recently.
“The majority of our business is coming from commercial general contractors, the construction side of the industry,” he says. “Before COVID the majority was coming from architects, but post-COVID it’s coming from construction. That is due a change in the bureaucracy – the people responsible for the submittal process in Boulder County have taken a dislike to people interacting with the government in person and are trying to get away from paper submittals.”
Bolder Reprographics is geographically well positioned for growth, Wright says, because Longmont is growing.
“It was formerly a funky, blue-collar working class kind of town, and now it seems to be growing exponentially. It’s close enough to recreation and far enough away from the big city. It’s a good town, and I plan to raise my family here,” says Wright, who just welcomed his first child, Raiden.
Longmont does have other repro shops, but competition is not too stiff, he says. In addition to customers from the AEC market, Bolder Reprographics serves artists who need reproductions of their work and members of the public who want photos, newspapers and other memorabilia scanned and cleaned up. “I try to keep the service personal enough that they want to come back to us,” he says.
Wright says he’s looking forward to sharing information and experiences with other members of the IRgA.
“The reprographics industry is where I set my anchor down,” he says. “There’s something magical about people creating something on a computer and seeing it get printed out.”