St. Louis Printer Targets ‘Recession-Proof’ Markets

Skip Bray, a 43-year industry veteran who first started working at former family-owned French-Bray Printing in Baltimore when he was 16 years old, says he’s enjoying himself career-wise now more than ever before. As the president of Modern Litho-St. Louis, Bray is leading an expansion effort into new market segments.

Building on Modern Litho’s acquisition of Midtown Printing in 2013 — followed by additional purchases of Trio Printing in 2018 and Mulligan Printing in 2020 — Modern Litho-St. Louis moved from a 20,000-sq.-ft. facility to its current 67,000-sq.-ft. plant about a year ago. The operation is located on The Hill, a long established Italian-American neighborhood dating back to the early 1800s.

Skip Bray, president, Modern Litho-St. Louis

The St. Louis operation installed a Mark Andy flexographic press to produce seed tags for a customer, which has proven to be a strong vendor partnership. “We did eight million seed tags in our first year,” Bray reveals, “and it’s largely recession-proof. Farmers will always need to plant seeds, no matter what the economy is doing.”

Another key recession-proof segment served by Modern Litho-St. Louis is providing election printing, mailing, and tracking services for 17 — and growing — counties and municipalities largely within Missouri and Illinois. Employing a fleet of seven Ricoh 9000 series, and older model, digital toner-based sheetfed presses, the St. Louis operation is kept busy producing sample ballots and other election materials. The majority of the ballot work is produced in St. Louis, although Bray notes that jobs can be moved to other Modern Litho facilities during crunch times, given the total of 16 Ricoh sheetfed digital presses in operation within Modern Litho’s five Missouri locations.

And, although Bray says the recent Presidential election and the Mid-Term election cycles provide a large influx of election business, municipalities and counties hold local primaries and elections continuously, making for a consistent annual revenue stream.

St. Louis Facility Targets Third Market

Modern Litho-St. Louis is now targeting a third pillar. It recently hired eight people to help it expand into the direct mail market, primarily targeting the nonprofit and higher education sectors, including the development departments that oversee appeals, annual giving, and renewal campaigns. Bray believes this recent expansion into providing direct mail services for the greater St. Louis area will generate $1 million to $1.5 million in new revenue for the now 67-employee business.

Richie Graham

Among the new hires is Richie Graham, a 33-year direct mail industry sales and operations veteran who formerly owned Fenton, Missouri-based Impressions Direct. Once part of the Flesh Co., Impressions Direct was included in the sale of the Flesh Co. to forms manufacturing powerhouse Ennis and was considered a non-core business.

Two FlowMaster inserters, a W+D 700 inserter, and an MBO folder were also purchased by Modern Litho-St. Louis from the former Impressions Direct facility.

"Our new team members, combined with our expanded facility, allow us to offer unparalleled direct mail services," Bray points out. "We're now uniquely positioned to handle complex data processing, provide advanced warehouse management, and deliver top-tier direct mail campaigns for our clients."

Headquartered in Jefferson City, Missouri, with operations in St. Louis, Columbia, and Kansas City, Modern Litho was sold to existing shareholders Jeff and Jenny Davidson in December of 2022. The Davidsons purchased the publication and commercial printing company from an ownership group that included Darrell and Chris Moore, Greg and Becky Meeker, and Darla Moore Porter.

Modern Litho was ranked No. 74 on the 2024 Printing Impressions 300 ranking of the largest printers in the U.S. and Canada (click here to download the entire list), reporting most recent fiscal year sales of $65.1 million.