50+ YEARS IN BUSINESS

In 1905, Albert Steinhauser started Steinhauser, Inc. as a small commercial printing company in his garage with the goal of providing for his family and children. Steinhauser succeeded to a degree that perhaps he could not have imagined: today the company is led by brother and sister Trevor Steinhauser and Tara Steinhauser Halpin – the fourth generation of the Steinhauser family to lead the company.

Steinhauser, Inc. embodies the evolving nature of family business, as each succeeding generation brought new innovations and new ways of approaching the business. Albert Steinhauser ran a commercian printing shop, printing fliers, letterheads, direct mailers and bonds. In 1958, the business was passed on to Albert’s son Winbur. Wilbur developed and perfected a re-moistenable glue strip process that was used for credit card applications, season ticket mailers and anything needing to be re-sealed. In 1983, the company was purchased by Wilbur’s son Robert. Robert introduced the first 4-color sheet-fed printing press in Cincinnati, and in the ‘90s he led the charge in perfecting printing in-mold labels. Labels and packaging became a big part of the Steinhauser business.

Today the company is under the leadership of Robert’s children, who have continued the Steinhauser tradition of adopting innovative new technologies with the acquisition of the company’s first digital press.

A year after Tara and Trevor succeeded their father in 2007, they decided to sell the commercial printing division of their business and focus solely on labeling and packaging.

“We couldn’t compete in both, and our core strength was in packaging, “ said company President Tara Steinhauser Halpin. “The commercial printing market is extremely competitive, and creating new business was a challenge.”

The Steinhausers made the right decision – Halpin said the sale of the commercial printing division and the focus on packaging has improved the health of the company.

Having two people at the head of the company is a first for Steinhauser. However, having multiple directors hasn’t proven to be a challenge for the firm.

“The key is communication and making sure the leaders are on the same page,“ Halpin said. “My brother and I have the same vision for the company, and we were able to communicate that to our board of directors and really have them buy into the vision.”

With 19 employees, Steinhauser is a very family-oriented business. Halpin says she learned from her father that a leader can’t sit behind a desk in front of a computer all day – a leader must be involved in the lives of his or her employees. The Steinhausers make multiple trips to the production floor each day, getting to know their associates and their families and sharing in successes both professional and personal.

As for the future, the Steinhausers plan to double their business in the next five years. They also hope to see the entrance of the fifth generation into the family business.

Steinhauser is a certified women’s business enterprise through the Women’s Business Enterprise National Council. Steinhauser is also committed to sustainability through environmental stewardship, social responsibility and positive economic impact through local charities and nonprofit organizations.

AS IT CONTINUES DURING ITS SECOND CENTURY IN BUSINESS, STEINHAUSER INC. IS A “NIMBLE PARTNER” TO ITS CUSTOMERS.

Steinhauser Inc. (Newport, Ky.) has come a long way in its 105-year history in the printing industry. Although it was founded by Albert Steinhauser in 1905 as a commercial printing operation, it has evolved into a business that, today, focuses solely on labels and packaging. It is owned and operated by Tara Steinhauser Halpin, president, and Trevor Steinhauser, vice president, the fourth generation of the Steinhauser family to run the business.

The company’s evolution was slow and steady. In the 1950s, it branched out into label printing, primarily laminated cut-and-stack paper labels. In the early 1990s, it perfected an in-mold label process using waterless offset lithography to print on plastic film, reports Steinhauser. It added flexographic printing in 2005 And then, in 2008, the company sold its commercial printing segment to concentrate on package printing.

Nimble partner

Today Steinhauser Inc. produces pressure-sensitive (p-s) labels, in-mold labels (IMLs), flexible packaging, and shrink sleeves for markets including health and beauty, personal care, household, and food and beverage. It prints on a variety of p-s films and paper, HDPE and PP IML films, shrink film materials (both OPS and PVC), and multiple flexible packaging films.

The company has one facility with three presses and 19 employees. Its flexographic capabilities include UV and water-based printing using Mark Andy (www.markandy.com) Comco presses. Earlier this year, the company installed an HP Indigo (www.hp.com) ws6000 digital press to support its growing need for effective short-run printing.

According to the company’s Strategic Foundation, its core strength comes from being “a proven nimble partner caring about our clients’ brands.” Steinhauser says the company uses its small size to develop close relationships with its customers, while providing large company capabilities. “What makes us distinctive is that we have the technology of our larger competitors, but we are a small company that is nimble and able to turn on a dime to serve all of our customers’ requests,” he says.

Short-run trends

In recent years, Steinhauser Inc. kept a close eye on the developing trend for smaller order quantities, along with the role that digital printing would play in this endeavor. “We researched digital technology for four years,” reports Steinhauser. “We made the decision to make the investment to satisfy current customer needs, as well as to secure new business. Digital technology is a perfect complement to our flexo workflow. Many customers are going to a JIT (just-in-time) philosophy and digital technology allows us to produce these small orders.”

Having researched a number of different digital presses, the company settled on the HP Indigo technology because of the resources and support HP offers, which “fit with our operating philosophy,” notes Steinhauser.

In the five months that the company has been running digital production, it has discovered a number of differences from the requirements for its flexo operations. “Internal communication is very important. Because of the volume and frequency of orders, there are a lot of balls in the air,” says Steinhauser. “This is one area that we have had to work on because digital printing requires a completely different operating model/mindset than our current flexo production.”

Because of this, Steinhauser reports the company “had to tighten up our processes and add some technology to our MIS to make it more robust so we could produce jobs in a timely manner. Communication with our customers is key as it pertains to artwork and timing expectations. Having as much information up front regarding artwork (color targets, PMS equivalents, etc.) is imperative.”

Steinhauser says the company is still feeling out how to use its digital printing capability, but currently, the flexo print runs range from about 6,000 to 100,000 linear feet, while the digital operation has been ranging from 250 to 5,000 linear feet. “We expect this to increase as our digital production grows,” he predicts.

Are we finished yet?

Because of the fast turnaround capability afforded by digital printing technology, the supporting finishing operations are also under the spotlight. Steinhauser reports that the company runs a variety of operations on its finishing equipment. To complement the HP Indigo press, it added a servo-driven AB Graphic International (ABG, www.abgint.com) Digicon Series 2 system that includes die-cutting, cold-foil stamping, laminating, and two flexo print stations.

“We built our Digicon Series 2 to allow us to offer a wide array of post-printing capabilities,” he says. “We currently run a lot of metallic inks on our Digicon; we have two flexo heads on our unit so we can run a flexo color and apply a coating in one pass. We also run a lot of foil on our finishing device and have the ability to laminate.”

As with any new operation, especially one that uses cutting-edge technology, Steinhauser Inc. had to overcome a number of hurdles. “We experienced some growing pains pertaining to reinsertion of jobs multiple times through both the Indigo and the Digicon,” reports Steinhauser. He credits both internal and external resources for overcoming any obstacles. “We have very skilled craftsmen in our digital department, so our prepress and finishing difficulties have been overcome very quickly.”

Steinhauser says his firm is more than satisfied with the finishing operation to date. “The quality and precision that this unit offers has allowed us to produce some amazing graphics,” he says. “We do not have additional finishing units at this point. The Digicon is keeping up with the Indigo with no problem.”

Going forward, Steinhauser sees a continuation of the trend toward smaller print runs. “Digital will continue to grow and gain market share as customers’ needs become more time-sensitive. Many customers are not interested in carrying inventories like they have in the past. Digital technology is a very cost-effective way to accomplish this and, many times, it is the only way.”

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GOERING CENTER FOR FAMILY & PRIVATE BUSINESS, FAMILY BUSINESS OF THE DECADE
More than one hundred years ago, Albert Steinhauser started Steinhauser, Inc. as a small printing company in his garage. Today, led by brother Trevor Steinhauser and his sister Tara Steinhauser Halpin, the company has successfully been transferred through four generations of family members. Despite being a small business, with only twenty-two employees, Steinhauser, Inc. has the capabilities and knowledge to compete with bigger competitors, bringing in sales close to $7 million in 2008.

Steinhauser’s mission is to “ensure its future success and existence by contributing to the success of our customers by providing them with state-of-the-art Technology, Customer Service, Craftsmanship and Quality; creating a healthy and secure work environment for our employees; following the best practice principles of our industry; and being a charitable and environmentally responsible corporate citizen.

Steinhauser considers its greatest accomplishment over the past decade as having a successful transition from the third generation. Today’s generation is the first to have two owners. However, according to Trevor Steinhauser, “having multiple directors really hasn’t changed the dynamic of the company. My sister and I get along well – we have good communication and the same goals and objectives.”

Despite being the fourth generation of the Steinhauser family to run the business, Trevor claims there was really no pressure growing up to be involved in the business. “We were always involved in working in it, but choosing to work here was always what we wanted to do.”

Mr. Steinhauser believes that the business managed to survive for over a century because of the company’s values, integrity, and common goals, along with having good succession and transition planning. “This has never been a place for dictatorship. We foster teamwork. There are a lot of people who you can learn from in the business world, and we have learned a lot from opening doors to our employees,” he states.

Trevor and Tara lost their father to cancer in 2006. With the help of their outside Board of Directors and the Goering Center, they managed to overcome their loss and focus optimistically on what’s next for Steinhauser, Inc. As co-presidents of the company, they sold a non-profitable division of their business and now focus on premium packaging solutions for the health & beauty, food & beverage, and household industries. In the future, the firm plans on having multiple children involved for the fifth generation. They also hope to see their business double in the next five years.

Recognized as a corporation that is committed to supplier diversity, Steinhauser, Inc. is certified as a women’s business enterprise through the Women’s Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC), the nation’s largest third-party certifier of businesses owned and operated by women in the U.S. Tara has also served as President of the Episcopal Church Women’s Group for the past four years while Trevor is an active member of the Ft. Thomas Lions Club.

FEATURE ARTICLE: COMPANIES TO WATCH – STEINHAUSER PRINTING
Steinhauser Printing is 103 years old. Since 1905, the company has produced top quality sheetfed offset products – including quite a few labels – from its plant in the Cincinnati, OH, USA, region. A few years ago, when the company was 99 years old, a major customer made a change to its product packaging, and Steinhauser found itself facing a change that its owners suspected would become reality sooner or later: Go flexo.

Steinhauser Printing has annual sales of $7 million. Today, 60 percent of that revenue comes from flexographic printing.

"Getting into the flexo market solidified us in the label game," says Trevor Steinhauser, vice president. "Flexo can offer more capabilities than sheet fed printing can. We still print a portion of our labels sheet-fed."

UNDER DURESS, STEINHAUSER SIBLINGS LEARN TO RUN FAMILY BUSINESS
Inheriting the family business isn’t supposed to happen tragically. But it did for Tara and Trevor Steinhauser. The untimely death of their father last August made Tara and Trevor the fourth generation owners of their family business much sooner than expected. Tara, 34, and Trevor, 29, said their dad, Robert, structured the company so it could run without him.

“My dad put his blood, sweat, and tears into the company and took a lot of risks” Tara said.

When transitioning into their new leadership roles at Steinhauser, Inc. – the family’s 100-year old printing company in Newport, Ky. – they were pleasantly surprised with their father’s pre-planning for the company’s succession.

Robert Steinhauser’s plans for the family business founded by his grandfather included naming Tara president in June 2005. Robert’s full intentions were to work alongside his daughter and train her to assume the responsibilities of Steinhauser, Inc.’s top official.

Tara wasn’t new to the business. She worked at the printing company summers during high school and college, and officially joined Steinhauser after graduating from Denison University in 1995.

But just five days after Tara was named president, Robert Steinhauser learned he had a brain tumor. The news was shocking, to say the least, and put the family in “complete panic mode” said Trevor, vice president, who joined the ranks after his graduation from the University of Kentucky in 2001.

Tara and Trevor, along with their brother Tyler, pulled together to support their mom, Polly, their dad, and each other during what would be the most difficult time in their lives. Symptoms of Robert Steinhauser’s illness started just shortly before his cancer diagnosis but progressed quickly afterward, which didn’t give Tara and Trevor much time to get a handle on the complex workings of the family business.

“Dad already was several steps into the succession planning process, and we were ready to begin our discussions of executing his plan” Trevor said. “He was so willing to pass on the reins.”

One of Tara and Trevor’s first business decisions was to seek the advice of Steinhauser, Inc.’s outside board of directors, which Trevor said was their “saving grace.” Both Tara and Trevor credit their father for having the foresight to hire the three-member board nearly 30 years earlier.

“They (the board of directors) took some serious time out of their schedules to make sure we were okay,” Trevor said.

One of the single best pieces of advice the board gave Tara and Trevor was to join the Goering Center for Family & Private Business, known for its expertise in Succession Planning.

Tara and Trevor’s involvement with the Goering Center started with the Next Generation Institute, the center’s highly interactive flagship program that covers a comprehensive curriculum of issues unique to family firms.

Tara said the Next Generation Institute also served as a “kind of support group.”

“We totally poured our hearts out,” she said. “Everybody was so comfortable opening up to people they never met before.”

Trevor said the Next Generation Institute was “a very cohesive group which provided us with extremely valuable information.”

Tara and Trevor graduated from the Next Generation Institute in 2006. A year later, they graduated from the Goering Center’s Leadership Development Institute. Designed exclusively for the Goering Center by Cincinnati-based Leadership Excelleration, Inc., this program equips participants with the critical leadership and business skills essential to improving performance in an organization.

“It taught us how to identify what kind of leader we are and as a result, how to structure our communication more effectively with people who have different personality types,” Tara said. “We also learned how to improve our relationships with our employees and our customers.”

Tara and Trevor continue to remain active in Goering Center programs and events and have shared their story more than once, including at the May 2007 Next Generation Institute graduation.

In retrospect, Tara said taking over her beloved father’s job so soon after learning of his cancer was gut-wrenching. But with help from Steinhauser, Inc.’s board of directors, the Goering Center, and through Robert Steinhauser’s savvy investment in a new printing press, Tara and Trevor were able to “rise above it.”

This past year, under their leadership, Steinhauser, Inc. saw revenue grow more than 50 percent.

But perhaps even more empowering for Tara was her personal growth in the company that came just a few months ago. That’s when Tara decided it was time to begin working out of the president’s office at Steinhauser, Inc. – a room last occupied by her dad.

“Until now, I couldn’t work in here,” she said. “But I know dad would want me to be here.”

From the president’s chair, Tara points through the open door into an adjoining conference room. A wall portrait of her father and mother is in direct view.

“I can see my dad from here,” she said. “And I ask him for help and guidance.”

UV FLEXO PRESS, EQUIPPED WITH DIGITAL DEFECT INSPECTION, LETS PRINTER TAKE CARE OF LONGTIME LABEL CUSTOMER
In 1905, the same year Wilbur Wright flew his “Flyer III” aircraft for 38 minutes, covering 24 miles, Albert Steinhauser opened a family-owned commercial printing company in Cincinnati. His son Wilbur would eventually become the second generation to run the company. In 1983, Wilbur’s son Bob would assume command, and in July 2005, Tara Halpin and her brother Trevor Steinhauser became the fourth generation to manage this remarkable printing company. Along the way, Steinhauser, Inc. has grown into a company of about 30 employees that prides itself on customer service, quality, reliability and responsiveness.

Steinhauser is a full-service commercial printer with two Komori sheetfed-offset presses, a Heidelberg direct imaging press, a complete digital prepress department and a variety of finishing and converting services which serve both their customers and the regional trade. Their products include in-mold labels, general commercial printing, self-mailers, packaging, and as of 2005, flexo-printed pressure-sensitive labels.

Why the decision to buy a new flexo press? “You can’t survive and thrive for a century without providing customers what they want and expect,” says Halpin. “Our largest sheet-fed customer indicated they were going to do an overhaul of their graphics. They told us what they wanted and what kinds of graphics they were looking for. We knew very quickly that the equipment we had at the time could not produce those labels for them.”

FLEXO FITS FOR NEW GRAPHICS

Kao Brands Co., formerly The Andrew Jergens Co., has been a Steinhauser customer for more than 60 years. Steinhauser has produced both cut-and-stack and in-mold labels for the Jergens® lotion product line for many years.

Kao Brands overhauled the graphics for its lotion line, which were to hit the market in mid 2006. “Offset lithography simply cannot produce brilliant colors on clear material,” says Trevor Steinhauser. It was shortly after Kao launched its restage initiative that Steinhauser began to investigate the feasibility of installing a flexo press to enable it to print the new graphics. They chose to commit to UV flexo as opposed to a waterbase or combo press.

“We wanted to be able to guarantee the quality level of the products we were shipping,” says Halpin. “Our customer’s stated vision is to become a premium health and beauty supplier, and we want to help them accomplish that mission through premium graphics. So it was very important to be able to provide consistent top quality labels.”

Said Steinhauser general manager Rod Baehner, “We considered several press manufacturers, but it became evident quickly that Mark Andy/Comco was the way to go. Not only for logistical reasons – as they are right in our backyard – but we also felt that the piece of equipment they proposed would best serve our customers’ needs in terms of flexibility and product quality. It turns out we were right.”

EXTRA SET OF EYES

Steinhauser managers knew the new press needed visual inspection capability, but they also wanted to take their inspection and quality control to a higher level. They wanted a proactive device on the new press, one that would allow them to manage the print process in real time and allow the operator to take immediate corrective action. They knew it was just a matter of time before all of their customers would be demanding capabilities such as automatic defect detection, color monitoring, and in-line bar code verification. Having these capabilities on the new press would give them an advantage over other flexo label printers.

“It became clear early in our evaluation process that BST Premius was the way to go,” said Baehner. “The company (www.bstpromark.com) was very flexible and willing to work with us to put together a system that would allow us to insure our customer that the labels they were receiving were meeting their high quality expectations.”

The l0-color Comco ProGlide MSP (www.markandycom) was installed in June 2005. The 16-in. Comco has hot- and cold-foil capabilities, rotary screen, in-line lamination, a three-station rotary die module and a roll-to-cut-sheet station. The unwind is equipped with a BST web guide, Wandress web cleaner and in-line corona treating unit. The list of extensive capabilities is topped off with a BST Pro Mark Premius Digital print-inspection system.

“The biggest advantage of this machine is the incredible flexibility it gives us as a supplier,” says Baehner. “Not only for our existing customer base, but also for customers in other markets we want to pursue. We are currently running pressure-sensitive material, but we have the capability to run unsupported film, SBS board up to 18pt., in-mold film and polypropylene. We can run just about anything you can throw at it.”

EVERY JOB, EVERY DAY

The press is equipped with a Premius Digital 3 Chip inspection system, with software modules that do defect detection, color monitoring, barcode verification, and roll reporting, all of which Steinhauser uses on every job, every day. “We are very careful about the quality of the product we produce,” says Baehner. “Defect detection is all about insuring quality. I like that it gives us an extra set of eyes on the product we are producing. The system has been an integral part of our Quality Assurance efforts, and it provides our operators with a valuable tool to assist them during the press run.”

Barcode verification is also very important to Steinhauser, according to Baehner. “Our customer’s domestic and international distribution networks have very stringent UPC verification guidelines. It is imperative that we provide our customer with labels that will scan accurately at the retail level.” The Premius system automatically locates every barcode on the repeat and grades them to ISO standards.

Steinhauser evaluates color in the LAB spectrum. The printer produces many special color matches for its customers. The Premius system monitors the actual print color on press, compares it to a preset standard, and then alerts the operator when the actual color varies from the standard’s acceptable range. “It gives us a considerable advantage in maintaining the level of quality our customers have come to expect,” says Baehner. “We have had a measurable decrease in waste and an appreciable increase in quality. The Premius system has been an invaluable tool thus far.”

Steinhauser looks forward to continuing to serve longterm customers, as it continues to demonstrate its commitment to quality printing and superior customer service. Concludes Baehner, “We do things the big guys cannot, and we think that’s the niche that will serve us well into the future. That is what we are all about-service and quality. “