General Info

Rod and Barbara Watson, owners, Teamwork Graphic Rod and Barbara Watson Teamwork Graphics Montoursville, Pa. As any screen printer who's been around the block for 10 or more years knows, change is survival. It may be comfortable to do the same thing year after year, but to keep your company profitable and growing, you've got to change directions with the trends and markets in your area. And sometimes this takes a lot of guts. Rod Watson, owner, Teamwork Graphics, who's been screen printing in Montoursville, Pa., going on 24 years, recently had to make such a change when a former employee decided to go to work for someone else and take as many of Rod's customers with him as he could. This shirt, which was printed for the National Swimming & Diving Championships, shows off Teamwork's ability to do top-notch simulated process work with the help of Fast Films. Watson had built his business on offering contract printing services to sporting goods stores and decorating athletic uniforms. He estimates that, at one time, this made up approximately 90% of his overall sales. But as the new competitor started slashing prices to get the business, Watson declined to play that game. He stuck to his prices and one by one he watched his sporting goods store clientele shift over to the cheaper shop. "Everyone else leaped to the cheaper guy, and he quit in five months, " says Watson. "We have two stores because they kept with us." By luck, the Little League World Series is headquartered in Pennsylvania, the home of Teamwork Graphics, which has done the printing for this televised event three years running. This order, which was done using indexed separations, consists of up to three souvenir designs, up to 300 shirts for each of the 16 teams, and shirts for parents and supporters.