Valerie Solomon, Night Owls Print Shop (Houston)
2020 Women in Screen Printing Award Winner

“I wish I had researched the technical aspects of screen printing more, before just jumping into it. I probably wouldn’t have spent 10 years doing things the hard way, and we would have found our niche much sooner!”

Gavin StGeorges, Proud Tshirts (Miami)

“I wish I would have known the printing process better. I wasn’t so confident in this aspect of the business. It’s tough trying to learn how to screen printing, marketing your business, handling customers, doing artwork, and at the same time learning a complex craft. The ideal situation would have been to spend a month or two in an established shop environment before opening my own. There is so much a new screen printer has to learn. Have a mental roadmap, and a little bit of real-life experience would have made the process so much easier.”

Dr. Xiaoying Rong, professor of graphic communication, Cal Poly State University
2020 Women in Screen Printing Award Winner

“Screen printing is not just a manufacturing process that puts inks on T-shirts, it’s also about creativity and business. … Screen printing and many other digital printing processes provide the tactile experiences that a digital device alone cannot provide. All I can say now is that tangible products provide unique value to effective communication that will never disappear.”

Ron Augelli, Talk Shirty To Me (Dickson City, Pennsylvania)

“There’s no foxhole mentality like you have with a regular job. … When it’s your business, it gets pretty lonely in the beginning. You have a lot of responsibility, and it’s yours alone. You combine that with the difficulty of the task, and it’s easy to see why so many businesses fail. The solution to this is find at least one other business owner you can relate to and, if nothing else, be able to safely vent to. Surrounding yourself with life minded individuals will only help you grow.”

Victoria Jones, Inbound Ink (Lynn, Massachusetts)
2020 Women in Screen Printing Award Winner

“I wish I would’ve known more about software used for screen printing like Inksoft or Printavo.”

Marshall Atkinson, Atkinson Consulting (Mesa, Arizona)

“Learn to delegate more. What tasks are you good at doing and enjoy working on? What tasks do you handle that you either don’t enjoy or don’t really have the skill? What is eating your time? Delegate the tasks that are time sucks, you don’t like, or aren’t good at. Keep the stuff you enjoy or are really fantastic at completing. If you do delegate, make sure the person understands what’s needed, has clear objectives, the right tools and skill set, and a deadline.”

Alison Banholzer, Wear Your Spirit Warehouse (Huntingtown, Maryland)
2020 Women in Screen Printing Award Winner

“Ask lots of questions. Find a mentor, find someone who has been doing it longer or better than you. Don’t stay quiet. Have confidence in yourself, you’ve made it this far. Keep going.”

Mark Coudray, Coudray Growth Tech (San Luis Obispo, California)

“The importance of cash management and financial competence. Too much emphasis on the technical delivery of the product. We spent countless hours chasing monies owed to the detriment of production.”

Pete Junior, New Era Apparel (Oceanside, New York)

“How growing in volume can be the worst thing for your business. I regret ever being more than a one auto shop.”

Deonjala Williams, Dee’s Sweet Tees and Heart and a Heat Press (Lake Worth, Florida)
2020 Women in Screen Printing Award Winner

“I wish I had known about contract printing much sooner. I enjoy outsourcing larger jobs to my subcontractors. I would have saved countless hours slaving over my printing press.”

Andy MacDougall, MacDougall Screen Printing (Royston, British Columbia)

“How widespread and utilized screen printing technology/processing is in so many different industrial and manufacturing sectors. I guess what goes along with that is the level of automation that was/is available, and training to use it.”

Tracey Johnston-Aldworth, Traces Screen Printing (Waterloo, Ontario)
2020 Women in Screen Printing Award Winner

“I wish I had known there would be a pandemic in 2020, LOL.”