Rolls of prints ready for customers at The Copy Spot in Greenville, SC
By Ed Avis
When Susan Robinson’s three children reached school age in 1999, she decided to go back to work. She answered a newspaper ad for “counter girl.” She assumed the job would be at a dry cleaners or something, but it turned out to be The Copy Spot, a reprographics firm in Greenville, South Carolina that had been launched eight years earlier by Teresa Gregory.
Robinson got the job.
“I would not know anything about the business had I not come to work for Teresa,” Robinson says. “She was a great mentor and she just took good care of me.”
When Gregory passed away in 2020, Robinson became part owner and has been running it ever since.
The company, which has a strong focus on the AEC market, primarily printed on Xerox equipment until about a year after Robinson took over, at which point they switched to HP PageWide printers.
“We have two PageWide printers here and we have an HP DesignJet printer that we use for posters and banners,” Robinson says. “And we have a small production printer for booklets and whatnot.”
Robinson says that despite the growth of digital documents, many of her customers still want paper CAD prints. And since the construction business has been booming in her area – hospitals and homes, among other projects -- that means she’s been printing a lot of paper.
“I still have a lot of young customers who want a hard copy, and we do a lot of half-size prints that are a little more manageable in the field,” she says. “There are plenty of companies using tablets and all that, but our GCs are still ordering full sets a lot to make sure they have a print copy on site.”
The Copy's Spot new Xante printer at work
The Copy Spot also has seen its color graphics work grow in recent years, Robinson says. For example, they recently used the DesignJet to print a number of color maps for a kayak and canoe outfitter.
And they just acquired a Xante UV printer, which has allowed them to print special projects such as decals for construction hardhats.
Robinson says she is looking forward to attending the IRgA Workshop in Nashville in October. If you are there, be sure to welcome her to the group!