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Minuteman Press • Round Rock

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By Kelsey Wilkinson Friday, 01 May 2009

The giant Heidelburg printer can be heard humming and churning as its vibrations rattle the floor beneath the clients who enter the doors of Minuteman Press in Round Rock. And it’s one of the things that owner Tommie Huggins says she loves most about her printing business franchise.

Owner Tommie Huggins - Photo by Rachel Parkhurst

Huggins worked in advertising for nearly 25 years, but when the youngest of her three children graduated from college, she decided it was time to “shake up her life.” She knew she wanted to go into printing based on all of her previous work in the advertising field.

“It’s one of those things where I was having trouble with printers when I was in advertising, and I thought, ‘Hey, I could do that!’”

So she began researching how to enter the profession. Huggins said she wrote down all of the things she was good at on a piece of paper and realized it was very conducive to buying a franchise.

“My family thought I was nuts,” Huggins said of their reaction to her news that she wanted to buy a printing franchise. “But you know, they were still supportive.”

She decided on Minuteman because she liked their hands-off management style, but also liked that they still offered a lot of help if she needed it. She bought the business from a previous owner in 2004 and has since turned it into a popular printing destination for area businesses and individual citizens.

For Huggins, it was really important to create a solid transition for the customer as the business changed hands from one owner to another. She wanted to be able to maintain the clients of the former owner, as well as bring in her own friends and clients from her years in the advertising field.

But Huggins also wanted to distinguish herself from other printing businesses. She felt it was important to focus on both digital and offset printing, which is the process of transferring the inked image from a plate, to a rubber blanket and then to the printing surface. Huggins said a lot of printing businesses only use digital printing, but the offset printing she can use with her Heidelberg press enables her business to be able to print anything in-house.

Huggins and her staff of four manage printing projects for hundreds of clients. Projects range from designing and printing wedding invitations, to the constructing, printing and mailing of letters for an entire University. She doesn’t respond well to critics who question the future of the printing industry.

“I reject the idea that people say print is a dying industry,” she said. “It’s a maturing industry. You just have to be smart and savvy to stay in it.”

It is this smart and savvy attitude that has enabled Huggins to stay a step ahead of the struggling economy, too.

“A lot of business is mental,” she said. “When this recession started, I decided that I was just not going to participate in it.”

And Tommie says she hasn’t seen a change.

“Everyone here is about taking care of business,” Huggins said. “I am fortunate to be in an area where I’m surrounded by smart, passionate people who are doing business in a first class way.”