Britten Grows TC World Headquarters - 09/14/2011
Britten, which designs, manufactures and installs large-format and custom digital banners for companies and events around the globe, has nearly doubled its physical footprint on Cass Road.
The company has acquired the neighboring 113,000 square-foot building (former home of Kellogg Wholesale Building Supply), which sits just 220 yards apart from its existing facility. A massive renovation project is underway, says president and CEO Paul Britten.
Britten is centralizing its operations in TC, making room for the former Grand Rapids-based screen printer, Ace-Hi Displays, which it purchased in 2008 as the economy faltered. The location handled mass-production event signage and large-format banner printing orders and had been a longtime partner of Britten before being acquired.
All 25 employees at the Grand Rapids facility were offered jobs in Traverse City, although only eight chose to relocate. One of those employees is Ace-Hi’s former owner, Jamie Bickley, who is the lead salesperson for mass production at Britten. A small handful of employees remain at a Grand Rapids sales office. Britten also has a sales office in Chicago.
“Since I purchased Ace-Hi, it’s been my desire to consolidate here, grow jobs in Traverse City, build future growth here,” says Britten.
Headquartered in Traverse City since Britten returned from Washington D.C. to his northern Michigan hometown in 1993, the company has seen consistent growth every year – even during the recession, Britten says, when the company diversified its product line to include tents, apparel and patented hardware for banner display.
While TC is Britten’s home, the world is its market.
The company recently sent a shipment of 15,000 light pole banner brackets for banner installation to a utility company in Lagos, Nigeria. Another Britten innovation, BannerDrop, has made its way into the ceilings of more than 2,000 shopping centers around the country. Counted among the TC company’s clients: Samsung, Microsoft, NASCAR and Disney, to name just a few.
The current Britten facility will be the primary large-format banner printing operation (it produces 3,500 custom projects in a typical month), and the former Kellogg building will be dedicated largely to rigid and display materials. The new space also will house two of Britten’s incubator businesses: MasterTent and Britten Gear, both of which have grown out of their incubator phase and need more room.
The new, expanded facility, which employs 200, will operate both large-format digital and screen printing presses – a necessary combination of “old” and new, because, says Britten, digital can’t beat the quality of screen printing for certain projects, and remains a much slower process.
Case in point: Britten’s new state-of-the-art HP flatbed digital press is 1/8th as fast as the screen printer, Britten says. “Digital is five to 10 years away from being as efficient.”
When the technology catches up, Britten no doubt will be ready.
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