On the surface, Mike Glupker and Pete Houlihan are masters of illusion.
With the right tools, they can transform the image of a chrysalis into a vibrant monarch butterfly, reverse its life cycle and release it again at their printing plant in Wyoming. A complex arrangement of angles, lenses and color allows the duo to trade faces with each other within the same wall portrait .
That trick is especially apropos, considering how Glupker and Houlihan share the same business philosophy about helping clients escape the ordinary.
But the digital printing wizards' most spectacular act might be expanding their niche business, undaunted by a struggling industry and a Michigan economy flailing for a foothold. In 2009, Diversified Data Services Inc. had sales of $3.5 million -- up 35 percent from the previous year.
That spike came during a period when the $88 billion U.S. commercial printing trade hovered 10 percent below its 2008 performance. Diversified Data bucked that trend by adding two people last year for a total of 26 full-time employees now, with plans to hire at least two more within the next year.
They added a new device -- the 25-year-old company's biggest investment to date -- to enhance their snazzy offerings to marketing firms, retailers and non-profit organizations large and small.
Their new Fuji Acuity Advance flatbed printer and HumanEyes software uses lenticular, or lens technology, to create three-dimensional, transitional and flipping illustrations. Beholders see multiple images as they stroll by a particular piece -- thereby improving the odds of the ever- crucial double-take. Think trade shows and other high-traffic events.
Lens placement is how promotional posters for the motion picture "Avatar" grabbed moviegoers. That otherworldly spectacle has raked in more than $2 billion in ticket sales across the world, making it the highest grossing film ever, partly due to the growing popularity of 3-D effects showcased in one version of the film.
"Everyone gets smattered with so much advertising and so many communications that you have to continually invent ways to get people's attention," says Houlihan, 33. He calls the company "a data-driven, direct mail, digital printing company with an absolute focus on taking care of clients in a way that is truly unique."
Unlike many magicians, Houlihan and fellow co-owner Glupker, 44, are happy to reveal the secrets of their craft. Having the right machines and the knowledge to use them are minutiae compared to the challenge of exceeding each customer's unique expectations, they believe.
No sleight of hand can improve a customer's bottom line. Real flexibility, efficiency and imagination are essential to transform those oohs and ahs into steady accounts, they say.
"All of them have different needs and we're poised to do a lot of things for each of those individual clients," Houlihan says.
History Repeating Itself
Glupker founded Diversified Data in 1984, sold it, bought it back, sold it again but stayed involved, and, with Houlihan, closed the loop about a year and a half ago. A Grandville native and resident, Glupker hawked candy bars for Hershey Food Corp. for five years during a trial separation. "I don't love chocolate," he says.
He launched Diversified Data as a student at Grand Valley State University, then called Grand Valley State College. His term paper was on mailing list brokering. Back then, the hottest technology available to him was his dad's IBM mainframe computer -- a humongous fossil by today's standards.
He started labeling and organizing mailings for Reagan-era political campaigns. "Everything was literally last minute -- of deathly importance -- so we learned to be really fast on our feet from the very beginning," Glupker says.
He met Houlihan about five years ago, shortly after he sold the firm a second time to Holland-based packaging provider, Steketee-Van Huis Inc. Houlihan ran The Printery, a Steketee subsidiary. They became fast friends and eventually business partners, purchasing Diversified Data together.
Both are avid outdoorsmen, and sail together in Holland during the summer.
"Mike and I just had an immediate connection -- in terms of sense of humor, in terms of energy, just in terms of our fundamental outlook on the way we thought businesses should be run."
An Eye for Detail
A textured close-up of two elderly Cuban women sternly smoking cigars first greets visitors when they walk through the door. It is the partners' favorite office art, partially because it says something about how fastidious the owners are about their craft.
When Glupker and Houlihan first produced the photo using the 3-D lenticular process, the results seemed spectacular with stogy smoke appearing to float off the canvass -- except for one small distracting image that detracted from the overall effect. Since lenticular material is pricy, they printed a smaller, 5-by-7-inch test version. The spot still didn't look quite right, so they printed a few more. Everyone was marred by the same blemish, yet the specialized equipment appeared to be operating properly.
Eventually the men checked the photo file for the primary image. A closer look revealed a skin protrusion -- "big, hairy wart," Houlihan surmises -- on one of the ladies' faces. Glupker and Houlihan still laugh about that obsessive attention to detail.
"Mike and I like to think we have a relatively quick wit (while) always maintaining a degree of professionalism and execution," says Houlihan, a Traverse City native and Hope College graduate. "When you balance that with good nature and humor, it has a really appealing effect not only for employees, but for customers as well. They sense that energy."
No Cookie Cutter
In one station at the company's 19,000-square-foot factory, a printing machine inks unique mailing addresses on wellness magazines at a speed of 10,000 per hour. It can to go three times faster with other pieces.
Recipients are logged in a database that stores names added and deleted per client request, sometimes more than daily. After labeling is complete, the magazines are to be taken directly to the post office in bundles already sorted by mailing route.
"We're doing all the work for them," Glupker says. Postage would cost this particular, non-profit customer 88 cents per piece at the highest end, but Diversified Data helped whittle rates down to around 9 cents.
Another nook prints books individually from start to finish -- saving the customer a fortune in shipping costs, Glupker says.
"Rather than print it conventionally and waiting for it to be done, we're printing the whole book at one time -- back page, guts, tabs, cover, and binding it -- so that if they says, 'Hey, can you throw two more on that order?' it's nothing for us," he says.
The company's deadlines are absurd. It is nothing to complete an order that must arrive in Singapore the next day, Glupker says.
"They always make me feel like I'm their only client," says Chris DuMond, 36, project manager for East Grand Rapids-based Design Vox.
DuMond needed six sketches printed on four-by-eight-foot foam boards to wow clients at a recent 2:30 p.m. meeting. He called Diversified Data that day at 10 a.m., and Glupker and Houlihan hand delivered them at noon.
"We have regular orders, and then rush orders are literally within a couple hours," Glupker says. "Then we have titanium rushes. And nuclear rushes.
"The nuclear rush is, like, everyone is already punched out on the way home and then we get the rush and everyone comes back."
The willingness to bend over backward is fundamental to the success of Diversified Data, the owners say. Each project has a different look, each client a special set of needs.
"Some days, we'd love cookie cutter," Houlihan says.
Aaron Ogg talks to politicians, party store owners, himself, kids, leaders of big corporations and the unemployed and writes about them. His byline most often appears in The Grand Rapids Press.
Photos:
Mike Glupker co-owner Diversified Data Services Inc.
Pete Houlihan co-owner Diversified Data Services Inc.
Diversified Data Services Inc. (2)
Mike Glupker and Pete Houlihan
3D Print
Photographs by Brian Kelly -All Rights Reserved