A Brief History of Self Employment

A Brief Bio

by Bob Becker

In the summer of '59 after graduating High School I was working as a helper to the gardener at an executive estate and was told the job would not last much longer. When I showed concern I was told the owner had interests in a few companies and maybe, just maybe, there may be an opening at one of them. I was fortunate enough to be given the opportunity to begin working and learn about manufacturing carbon interleaved forms in a very small shop with several other young people, many who had come out of trade schools. This was an entry level job sweeping floors, taking care of the trash and making deliveries.

We printed with rubber plates and a six part job on the collator was a major project. This was in the early days of what would become a high tec industry of the day. After three years the business was sold and I took a job with one of the largest and fastest growing forms houses in the Philadelphia area, DeMarco Business Forms. For the next five years I was exposed to many different types of equipment and learned the value of organization. We produced lots and lots of paper very quickly. DeMarco had a variety of equipment from old to the newest available.

In '67 I became interested in selling my services to upstart companies. I found this very interesting and challenging. As the forms industry grew so did my knowledge and abilities in this ever changing part of the Printing industry. The companies I helped get started and to grow included Cypress Business Forms, Cypress/Safeguard BF, Shaw BF, Interstate BF and Datatech BF all located on the East coast.

At this same time I developed an interest in sheet fed commercial printing and acquired equipment and worked part-time out of my garage learning Letterpress and Offset printing. It was lots of fun. I was working around high speed equipment on my regular job and coming home and trying to set type.

Scenes from my garage. c 1969. The Press to the right back in the corner was my first. A Gordon 8x12 with a foot treadle. As you can see I quickly moved up to the art of offset with a Multi 1250 and Whitten 15.

In the early '70's after returning home from our first trip west out of New Jersey we decided to move to Colorado. Oh boy, did I misjudge the west. I thought I had skills that could get me a job just about anywhere. The only web forms houses were in Denver and they were not very big. So we settled in Denver and I took a job at Data Documents and started a small print shop in Broomfield that did not do well. I simply did not know the area and did not have a feel for the business climate. We had to make a decision. After a trip back to the East coast to gather our thoughts I decided to make Colorado our home and try to learn more about the sheet-fed commercial printing business which had more potential for employment then the web forms industry.

I found employment with a small printer who's owner had a reputation of doing high quality work on small presses. This started the process of filling a blank in my printing career by learning sheet-fed printing from a skilled craftsman. Those early days at Tumbleweed Press brought friendships that will not be forgotten. We humped butt and got a lot done. As the business grew the owners, Jim and Gloria Meagher, wanted to move into quality process work and purchased a 29" Harris. I was not sure I wanted to go in that direction and lift for employment with another small press Printer. It didn't take me long to realize without big press skills my career would stall. I want back and asked Jim for an opportunity to run a big press. By now he had three large presses and had moved to larger quarters. He obliged and at 35 I was learning to run process work.

As with most Printers that follow that progression of growth the small press department became a bother. One day while talking about things, Jim and I struck a deal and I purchased all of Tumbleweeds small press equipment and started Phase III printers on April fools day 1978. With support from Tumbleweed Press, Phase III took off.

Phase III printers, 1978 in Westminster. A true trade shop. We set out with four Multi 1250's and a Miehle vertical and soon added a Harris, a cutter, a folder and a dark room and we were on our way.