Computer printer services inc. finds clients still have large need for hard copy even in tech-filled office environments
Eight years ago, Bernard McEwen started his struggling company out of his house in a spare bedroom with only a cardboard table and a telephone as office equipment.
Now his company, Computer Printer Services Inc., has 350 customers including the state Department of Motor Vehicles, which is paying the firm $5 million to replace the agency’s old dot-matrix printers with high-speed lasers at more than 300 locations.
It’s been steady growth for the Paramount company, which has capitalized on a stark reality for businesses today: Despite this being the digital age, there’s still a heavy reliance on paper, and therefore, on printers.
Computer Printer Services started out as a two-man team. Sales manager Michael Gordon made endless cold calls trying to sell their services to big businesses, and McEwen did much of the servicing and helped with sales calls.
Their first customer was Unihealth, which operated 11 hospitals and clinics in the Los Angeles area. (It has since merged with Catholic Healthcare West.) That single account generated about 75 percent of their first-year revenue of $300,000.
Six months later, the two businessmen were able to move out of their cramped home office in Moreno Valley and into a compact space they shared with Acom Computers in Long Beach.
Soon, several customers followed, eventually building into the company’s “Original Gang of 10,” the term that McEwen and Gordon use to describe their first 10 customers. They include Long Beach Container Terminal, Glendale Adventist Medical Center, American Metals, Allied Refrigeration and Pharmavite Corp.
“They are very knowledgeable, pleasant people to deal with,” said Lynne Lawrence, president of United Service Network, which subcontracts many of its repair and maintenance jobs to Computer Printer Services. “They have done a good job for us.”
By 1996, when the company’s revenues broke the $1 million mark, Computer Printer Services had moved to its own spacious office in Paramount and had opened two branches in Denver and Salt Lake City.
With more room and several major accounts under its belt, the company continued to grow rapidly.
Big customers
Some of the company’s big customers in addition to the DMV now include the Los Angeles Times’ 22 distribution centers, HomeBase (now operating as House2Home), the Los Angeles Housing Authority, and the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.
“In 1999, we won the (DMV) bid to install 3,000 printers and we’ve got an ongoing service contract,” said McEwen, who goes by the nickname Mac.
The installations proved to be a logistical nightmare because they had to be installed when the DMV offices were closed on Saturdays. “Every Saturday we were somewhere in the state,” the sales manager noted. “It took us a year and a half to install 3,000 printers.”
But the DMV contract boosted Computer Printer Services’ revenues to $4.6 million last year.
McEwen, who is African American, spent 14 years in the military before working in the computer printer business. His cousin is Mark McEwen, co-anchor of “CBS This Morning.”
He said that he is proud his company has grown so rapidly, despite the fact that no bank would give him a loan to get started.
“I couldn’t get a single banker to listen to me or understand what we were trying to accomplish,” said the 55-year-old businessman. “So we went on guts.”
McEwen knew he could do the job. He had spent several years working for other computer printing companies before he launched his own. His first job after leaving the military was with Decision Data Computer Corp. in Colorado. He started out as a service engineer repairing printers. By the time he left Decision Data seven years later, he was the area manager in San Francisco, but he was hired away by a young Australian company called Anzac Computer Equipment Corp.
At Anzac, McEwen’s job was to develop the company’s technical operations, train the technicians, and earn the company more money on its maintenance contracts. When he started at Anzac, maintenance contract revenue was $100,000 and when he left three years later it was $3.5 million.
“That’s when I decided I could do this on my own,” he noted.
Even though he couldn’t get a loan, he did find a partner. Ed Kennedy, who owns Acom Computers in Long Beach, said he would guarantee the company’s expenses for the first two years in exchange for a 49 percent interest in the business. Within three years, McEwen had bought out his partner.
Filling a niche
What the two businessmen have done is tried to fill a niche that they say has been neglected by many computer outfits. Most companies are great on repairing computers, computer servers and systems, they say, but printers are an afterthought because everyone thinks we live in a paperless society. But Computer Printer Services has found that is not true.
“You have a printer that is not working and you now have several people walking around with nothing to do,” McEwen said.
