Today we’d like to introduce you to Jim “JB” Thompson.
So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
After serving a 5-year apprenticeship as a color scanner operator and working part time as an instructor at the Milwaukee Graphics Arts Institute, I found myself watching my friends open Prepress Shops back in the eighties. I always wanted to own my own business as my parents did but did not want to compete with my friends in the Milwaukee market so I took my family off to Atlanta to snoop around the local printing industry and ended up getting a job at SynergieGraphics which was the prepress arm of Geographics back in 1990. I was working out great I was meeting some very nice people and loving the area. One day, I stumbled across a tube full of quite large shiny prints in a closet and I asked my boss at the time what they were and he told me they were some prints that you could do 1 at a time without making film and plates, he said it will probably not work really well. I was so amazed at what I was seeing I called the company that had sent the pictures, Visual Edge out of California and found out they had modified a large format electrostatic Xerox machine used to print blueprints into 4 color process on a 44″ wide roll fed. This was pretty exciting technology back in 1992 and there was nobody in the Southeast Printing Large Format and doing Photoshop retouching on a Macintosh. I asked them if they were willing to take a chance on a couple of young guys who were writing a business plan to open a prepress shop in downtown Atlanta and they agreed. I was lucky enough to meet Mark Ehrhard a perfect match for a possible partner who knew the film stripping part of the business and had also relocated to the area from Kansas City and we were about the same age. With a little bit a cash, a small loan from Xerox and a handful of potential customers we were in business with a strategic location on Armour Circle with easy off and on to the freeway.
In 2009, Mark decided to end our 17 years at which time I was lucky enough to buy out his share of the business. During that 17 year run, we had the best of times with 3 locations running 3 shifts and then the economy went belly up and more and more print shops were closing every month. We scaled it down dropping back to 1 location on Chattahoochee Ave running just 1 long ship as a small commercial printer offering digital and conventional printing as well as large format printing, laminating and mounting with a small bindery. Then in 2012 as the print industry continued to evolve into an internet driven environment, I no longer felt the need to pay the higher rents of downtown Atlanta and migrated to Morrow, Georgia just off the freeway. To this day we still pick up and deliver all around the metro area from Cumming to McDonough and ship print jobs all around the country.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Right about the time you get the business figured out the technology changes. We started doing drum scans, retouching, table stripping and proofing, then as film stripping went away we got into image setting, then film, scanning and conventional proofing went away and we were forced to become a printer with digital proofing and then proofing is all PDFs that are getting approved on people’s phones. I am not sure what is next but we are ready to roll with the punches.
Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about ImageLink – what should we know?
This October 1st, ImageLink will be 25 years young. We still like to have our customers think of us as their own personal print department and they know all of the employees by their first names. At ImageLink, we sell ourselves on the same strategy we did 25 years ago Excellent Service & Quality Products at a Fair Price.
Our specialty is quick turnaround with no rush charge.
Our company is the type of place where the employees come to stay for a long time.
I don’t want to be the company that you get up in the morning and dread going to work.
Is there a characteristic or quality that you feel is essential to success?
Honesty by far wins the race. Let’s face it nobody is perfect and stuff happens along the way. It is better to own up to a bad situation, make it right for the client or employee, learn from your mistake and move on. What goes around comes around.
Contact Info:
- Address: 1078 Citizens Parkway,
STE J, Morrow, GA 30236 - Website: ImageLink.net
- Phone: 404-605-0400
- Email: sales@imagelink.net
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