Muskegon graphics business pushes for 30 percent growth, adds 15 jobs

By: Deborah Johnson Wood

This week, the Muskegon Area Chamber of Commerce honored Dan McKinnon as one of Muskegon’s outstanding entrepreneurs. McKinnon is the founder of Graphics House Companies, a thriving family of companies that has added 15 jobs in the past year.

Between 2000 and 2007, the company’s employee base grew from 26 to 70, and sales jumped 150 percent. Already this year, the numbers show a 24 percent sales growth, while the industry is on a downswing.

“Dan is a visionary who believes, to use an old phrase, if you build it they will come,” says Mike Mahynske, company spokesperson. “It takes a salesperson time to build a client base, so if you want growth next year you hire someone now.”

The company hired nine salespersons over the last year.

Graphics House Companies includes:

• Graphics House Printing, an offset printer;
• Graphics House Imaging which creates large signs for other printers using an HP/Scitex TurboJet 8500, one of only 10 in the country;
• Graphics House Apparel which creates custom embroidery and screen prints apparel using a cutting-edge Diamondback R Series Automatic Textile Press that prints 500 T-shirts an hour; and
• Graphics House Express, five storefronts (four in Muskegon, one in Grand Haven) that sell wireless phones, copy services, and retail the products produced by the other three companies.

“One reason we’re hiring more sales people is to give us the opportunity to better saturate the market,” says Mahynske. “We’re huge on the “we” concept—partnering with the customers, giving them a human to talk to—so making the territories smaller is important so we can build those relationships.”

Source: Mike Mahynske, Graphics House Companies; Muskegon Area Chamber of Commerce 

Deborah Johnson Wood is the development news editor for Rapid Growth Media. She can be contacted at [email protected].