Faust Printing--Delivering the Impossible
Since its inception in 1963, each year, Don and Rose Mary built their company, bit by bit, while raising their four sons and one daughter, Laurie. By 1973, the couple had built a small-but-thriving family business with annual sales in the $1 million range. The facility moved from the couple's home to a manufacturing site in Upland, CA.
Sadly, in 1984, Don Sr., who had been in retirement since 1980, was killed at age 57.
With no warning, Rose Mary found herself guiding Faust Printing—without her husband. She turned to her sons, already working at the company, for support. The family pulled together and guided the firm through the loss of its founding father.
Today, Rose Mary credits her sons for researching synthetic stocks and their possible uses, and for pushing the printing capabilities of Faust Printing during the past decade, leading up to the company's well-executed miracle poster.
"Of course, Don Jr., the oldest, started working in the firm when he was about [age] 6. Now he's president," she states with pride. "When my husband died, I made my sons equal partners. The family that works together, plays together and prays together...stays together."
It can also break records together.
Faust Printing's five-million-dpi poster is a testament to the professionalism of the Faust family—professionalism noticed by even the most talked about industry consolidation firms.
"We've been approached by a few," reports Don Jr., admittedly not a fiscal conservative, but a bit of a risk taker and visionary. "In some ways, the consolidation that's hitting our industry is disconcerting. It makes you stop and wonder what is happening to the small, family printing business."
Certainly, family businesses remain the heart and soul of the printing industry, even as the industry steps into the new millennium.
Faust Printing is stepping into 2000 with 32 employees and two shifts operating on a 24-hour basis, six days a week. Rose Mary, besides being chairman of Faust Printing, serves on the Rancho Cucamonga Chamber of Commerce Board. Faust Printing, she states, believes in giving back to the community and being a positive influence to society.