A proud printing tradition
Aug. 6—By Michael B. Hardison
'Passion for Printing' was the headline used to described International Minute Press when it arrived in Sampson County following the Schulte family's purchase of Commercial Printing in 2005. Years later, that same passion persists today as the next generation has come into the fold.
International Minute Press, also known as Minuteman Press, Inc., has remained at its current location on 103 Morisey Blvd., Clinton, since 2005 and continues to be owned and operated by Windy Schulte. Schulte has run the business since then with loving husband and entrepreneur David Schulte before his passing on Dec. 7, 2022. He was 76.
Though he had passed, the Schulte family passion has not dwindled in the slightest as their son, Andrey and his wife Melissa, have since moved back to Sampson County, continuing where David left off. Now here, Andrey serves as co-owner and Melissa operates as office manager.
The Schultes, along with trusted production manager Omar Godinez, who they also call family, have continued to grow Windy and David's shared "Passion for Printing."
"We've been in business since mom and dad started in 2005 and we're a true commercial printer," Andrey Schulte said. "While true, that doesn't take away from the fact that we are still able to service, the birthday cards or startup business, that may not need 10,000 business cards, but 200 business cards. We're still able to do that and keep that a very cost effective option until they get to that point where we start looking at higher quantities. Yet at the same time, we have the ability to do like one or two birthday cards, if need be."
"We're not a small little print shop, but even so, we don't turn that kind of business away because that's very important to us."
In a 2005 article, when they opened, Windy noted of the business, "We are a full service printer that can handle any kind of printing." That statement is no less true these days as they've incorporated much printing technology since then.
"We'll print one birthday card, but we've had a job that went out that was a million sheets of paper," Andrey said. "So we can print pretty much everything under the sun. People always ask us things like 'what kind of things can I print on?' The way technology is changing, I mean honestly, outside of the air you breathe, we can pretty much print on anything."
"We've got material going on the side of the brewery in Mount Olive," Schulte continued. "I went out there for a solid day, really worked with the owners to prep facility and explain the product, the materials we'd be printing on and how it works. Then we were able to wrap the entire side of his building with his graphic, rather than him having to hire an artist to handpaint it which would cost God-only-knows-how-much."
"The technology is so advanced you're able to keep that product for so much longer because the sun is very powerful thing, that's something we combat."
Pens, posters, brochures, postcards, forms, flyers, business cards and graphic design services are some of the top-selling products of the vast amount they offer. They've started offering printing T-shirts at around $11. Their printing was even featured at the Iowa State Fair and even assisted in mission work in other countries.
"I think we were very proud that one of the centerpieces of the Iowa State Fair was printed here," Schulte said. "It's was a huge pig on a thing so it was pretty cool to see it go up. If you follow some social media and stuff in Iowa, you'll see that up there and that's pretty interesting, to feel like we did and had a part in that."
"I think we're a little blessed in the fact that we're able to see some of these projects throughout the production cycles," he continued. "So while we're not directly involved with selling it, or doing anything like that, it's really interesting for us to be able to talk about it. You can always see things happening like this in Clinton that most people just don't know about."
"Even worldwide, we worked with a really nice lady who is a missionary," he added. "We just did 20,000 booklets going to Albania to share the Word of Jesus Christ Jesus, for people who have never heard of Jesus. For her to send pictures back to us of kids and elderly people who've never been exposed to things like that ... to think we touched that in some way, it's pretty powerful."
While International Minute Press has been in operation and growing nonstop since 2005, few know how it all began. Owner Windy Schulte shared the story that involved her husband David.
"My husband was president of L'Oreal, he retired and I was born and grew up in Clinton," she said. "So after we were married, we settled down here to raise a family. One day he was out playing golf with a gentleman that owned Commercial Printing, so we purchased that. They had been in business for 57 years so we already had a customer base and my husband was very familiar with the printing process being with L'Oreal."
"So we bought them, did our research and Minuteman Press was the number one printing franchise in the world," Schulte said. "There's over 1,000 nationwide and so we got a lot of support from them."
It was a lot hard work after that, which has pushed the business to the forefront of printing in Sampson County and extending to over 20 other states in the U.S.
"When we purchased the building, they were basically doing a lot of offset printing and a lot of forms," Windy said. "We've really expanded the business into large signs, to the wide formats and to promotional products. So we have expanded the business quite a bit and every year we've grown the business."
"Matter of fact, since Andrey and Melissa have been with me, we've grown the business about 17% yearly," she said. "So yeah, business is good and we're up to 24 states now."
Back in 2005, Windy imparted the need for trust to have growth.
It is a trust they have indeed been able to build over the years, which has gained them many accolades. Equally, it is a trust they've built among themselves that has allowed them to offer the best experience possible to their customers.
"We have absolute trust in one another," Andrey Schulte said. "One of the facts of growth is that there's a little bit of trust that comes with it. If not, growth doesn't happen. There's things that we do that we've never done before and there's a lot of research and stuff that goes into that but, at the end of the day, when we get ready to start a project, we trust each other; we communicate."
"Communication is huge and like my wife says, we all kind of do our own things, because we have a small band here and we have to focus on different things at different times," he said. "But, when we come together on a project, everyone communicates very well as to what needs to be done before, what needs to happen during and what needs to happen after; why, to make sure that at end of the day that customer gets the very best overall experience they can."
Reach Michael B. Hardison at 910-249-4231. Follow us on Twitter at @SamsponInd, like us on Facebook, and check out our Instagram at @thesampsonindependent.
Reach Michael B. Hardison at 910-249-4231. Follow us on Twitter at @SamsponInd, like us on Facebook, and check out our Instagram at @thesampsonindependent.
