FAST TRACK FIRMS -- Sailing Against the Wind
Ranking: 236
Most Recent Fiscal Year Sales: $23.5M
Previous Fiscal Year Sales: $21M
A sheetfed and web printer, Great Lakes produces high-end catalogs, brochures and annual reports. Its GLDirect is a mailing and fulfillment business. AKSESS is a software development and an Application Service Provider (ASP) of digital asset management. New for 2003 is its print-on-demand (POD) center—a nice growth area to offset what President James Schultz terms a flat commercial printing market.
Great Lakes recently installed a Heidelberg NexPress 2100, a Quickmaster DI Pro and a six-color, 40˝ Heidelberg perfector. All totaled, the company has invested $5 million in new equipment over the last 18 months.
Future investments, says Schultz, will center around a stronger management information system. "The key to our growth is integration. We're on the right path to creating our future."
