SBA Announces Montana Small Business Person of the Year, Andrew Field, President and Founder of PrintingForLess.com, and Other Award Winners

Andrew Field, President and Founder of
PrintingForLess.com http://www.PrintingForLess.com of Livingston, has been named SBA’s 2006 Montana Small
Business Person of the Year.

Field will be honored during the National
Small Business Week event in Washington, DC, April 12-13, 2006, along with
representatives from every state. He will again be honored, along with
other outstanding award winners, at the Montana Small Business Week Award
luncheon ceremony on May 5, 2006, in Bozeman.

Andrew Field is a serial entrepreneur, starting in the
printing industry in 1976; he is currently at work in his third successful
start-up business. After moving to Livingston, Montana, from the Twin
Cities in 1990, Andrew began an entrepreneurial journey that would take him
from a local garage to the boundless limits of cyberspace. First, he
started a successful automotive service business, which he sold when he
secured a wholesale automotive chemical distribution business, American
Automotive Supply. After winning top awards for sales five out of six years,
Andrew turned over operations of American Automotive to his wife so he could
devote efforts to growing another new start-up company.

While fly fishing on the Yellowstone River in Montana one
day, a fishing buddy lamented that the print shop he worked for was shutting
down. Intrigued by a new challenge, Andrew decided to launch a print shop
of his own. Andrew’s affinity for the printing industry actually began in
high school when he learned to run a press on the job at a local print shop.
He envisioned a new enterprise printing brochures and catalogs for small
business owners across the state and in October 1996, founded Express Color
Printing to serve the Montana printing market. He started with six people
and $500,000 in equipment. Two years later, sales were about $50,000 a
month, roughly break-even, and growth appeared limited. After discovering
that Montana had more elk and bison than print buyers, he embarked on a new
mission that would expand far beyond Montana.

One day a frustrated customer asked Andrew to print a
brochure he created in Microsoft software. It seemed that no one else
locally was able to do it and it got him thinking about a huge untapped
market. He realized that as entrepreneurs became more tech-savvy using
mainstream software applications to produce company brochures and marketing
materials, they would want to convert their digital files to professionally
printed brochures. To fill this void, Andrew created a user-friendly web
site for businesses and changed his company’s name to http://www.PrintingForLess.com in
1999.

His vision was to offer a custom Web site (not just a
shopping cart site) that would allow his customers to fill out simple online
forms, request the number of copies, size, and folds, and have the pricing
on the screen automatically change with the specs. He wanted to allow small
businesses to order professionally printed materials directly from their
desktop. At the time, this was a big technology challenge. Outside
developers using Oracle and Microsoft products bid about $1 million to do
the work, but Andrew didn’t have that kind of cash. So, he hired a Wall
Street refugee and a programmer fresh out of school who built the initial
system for about $100,000.

Customers liked the system, which allowed them to send files
in a wide variety of formats and software languages, but inevitably they had
questions that required human intervention. Simple fix – Andrew made the
company’s phone number more prominent on the website, and installed
three-person teams to be responsible for each print job from start to
finish.

Originally, PrintingForLess.com (PFL) only offered
brochures. Today, products include postcards, posters, business and
greeting cards, newsletters, stationary, catalogs, booklets and custom
pieces such as CD covers. At the PFL website, visitors can get instant
estimates, place orders, track job status and get unmatched technical and
customer support.

Named to Inc. Magazine’s 500 fastest growing companies in
the United States for a third year in a row, PFL is a leader in the field of
internet based color printing companies. Andrew Field has grown PFL from 6
employees in 1999, to 125 printing professionals today, and has become the
country’s largest online seller of commercial printing. Gross sales have
increased from a modest $600,000 annually, to over $20 million, and sales
aren’t the only thing on the rise at the Livingston based company.

PFL has put together a financing package and purchased 70
acres near I-90 in Livingston and started construction on a new 46,500 sq.
foot state of the art printing facility and office set for completion in May
2006.

Through his leadership and progressive business practices,
Andrew Field has built a dynamic culture that both empowers and inspires his
employees for success. He was recognized by Fortune Small Business and
Winning Workplaces as a winner of the 2005 Best Bosses Award, for developing
innovative approaches that have created a high-performance workplace. Field
credits his employees for contributing to the dynamic environment where
great ideas and disciplined execution have made PrintingForLess.com a leader
in satisfying customer’s needs.

Andrew Field and PFL contribute to a variety of local and
national charities including, Big Brothers/Big Sisters, Eagle Mount,
Stafford Animal Shelter, Special Olympics of Montana, Montana Ballet
Company, and many more. Field serves on the board of Caspari Montessori
Institute and Golden Helix, Inc., a Bozeman, MT based software start-up.
Additionally, he is a member of the Young President’s Organization and
Pioneer Entrepreneurs, a Bozeman, MT based forum for local business leaders.

Gallatin Development Corporation, the Small Business
Development Center of Bozeman, and Mountain West Bank, N.A. of Bozeman,
nominated PrintingForLess.com for this award.

Other 2006 award winners include: John Gillis and Darlene
Hartze of SGM Biotech, Inc., Bozeman – Montana Small Business Exporter of
the Year; Kasey and Flora Buoy of Alpine Granite Accents, Inc., Victor –
Montana SBA Young Entrepreneurs of the Year; Ted, Donald, Gregg and Mike
Tvetene of Trebro Manufacturing, Inc. and Tvetene Turf, Inc., Billings –
Montana and Region VIII Family Owned Small Businesses of the Year; Joe Bower
of the Business Resource Center at CTI, Helena – Montana Financial Services
Champion of the Year; Deborah McIsaac of Mary Kay Cosmetics, Billings –
Montana and Region VIII Home-based Business Champion of the Year; Dave
Burgess of Western Business News, Billings – Montana Small Business
Journalist Champion of the Year; Mark Sansaver of the Assiniboine & Sioux
Tribal Enterprise Community, Poplar – Montana Minority Small Business
Champion of the Year; David Strong of the Office of Public Instruction,
Helena – Montana and Region VIII Veteran Small Business Champion of the
Year; and Diane Yarus of AirWorks, Inc., Kalispell – Montana Women in
Business Champion of the Year.

For more information on the 2006 Small Business Week Awards
Luncheon or the award winners, please contact the SBA Montana District
Office at 406.441.1081.

Rena Carlson

Business Development Specialist

Montana SBA District Office

10 W. 15th St., Suite 1100

Helena, MT 59626

406.441.1086

202.481.4195 FAX

[email protected]

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Livingston printing entrepreneur named state’s small business person of the year

By Tribune Staff

A Livingston printing entrepreneur has been named Montana’s Small Business Person of the Year.

Andrew Field, president and founder of PrintingForLess.com, will be honored during Small Business Week festivities in Washington, D.C., next week. He will also be recognized at a state ceremony in Bozeman on May 5.

PrintingForLess.com is an Internet-based printing company with customers across the United States.

The business started in Livingston with six employees in 1999 and has grown to 125 and become the largest online commercial printer in the country.

Sales at the business have grown from $600,000 annually to more than $20 million. The business next month plans to occupy a new 46,500-square-foot printing plant on 70 acres in Livingston.

Full Story: http://www.greatfallstribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060407/BUSINESS/604070339/1046