The rigid structure of the U.S. Air Force helped lead Dan Wallace down the path of success. It provided a solid foundation for the printing business, and he started Wallace Printing from his garage in Newton, NC, USA, in 1989. Twenty-seven years later, his small company of 10 employees is a big success.

One of the reasons for Wallace Printing’s success is Dan’s decision-making. He still has the one color press from his early garage days, but he invested wisely by adding two and five color presses to satisfy his growing business. Faced with a need to replace a 30-year-old paper cutter, he did his homework and found the answer. In early December, a new 36” Prism paper cutter with Microcut from Colter & Peterson was installed.

“The cutter is doing everything we need it do. I had one small issue early on, but (C&P’s) Rich Peereboom drove three hours to fix it and I’m very pleased with its operation,” says Wallace. “The customer response by Rich, I’ve never had anyone do anything like it. I was tickled to death.”

Wallace served four years in the Air Force as a military policeman. After the native of Hickory, NC left the service, he got married, returned home and went to work as a county deputy. A now defunct printing company, Meredith-Burda, later moved to the Newton area and Wallace was “one of 10 people they hired who had absolutely no printing experience. They had four shifts, so I worked three days and was off the other four, and that’s how I learned about the printing business.”

The spare time led Dan to opening Wallace Printing in his garage, doing it part time for nearly two years before a larger company bought Meredith-Burda. That’s when Wallace decided to go out on his own full time.

President Kim Repaire, Dan’s daughter, currently runs Wallace Printing. It operates from a 12,000 square-foot facility they moved into in 2001 and services a mostly local clientele; the majority of their business is within a radius of 150 miles from Newton, located in Western North Carolina and only 35 miles from Charlotte. Dan says the one-shift shop handles more offset work than digital and wide format, doing printing for many county school systems and area universities including the University of North Carolina-Charlotte.

“We do a lot of quick turnaround work. No one wants to wait on printing anymore,” says Wallace, who counts on a 5-color Komori press with coater to go with a pair of 2-color Ryobis. “We run the gamut and print everything from commercial bank products to activity calendars.”

Wallace says his 30-year-old paper cutter was bought used, fueling a desire to replace it with a new model. “A sales rep from Fujifilm knew I was looking for a replacement and he suggested I contact Colter & Peterson. Rich Peereboom showed me every line C&P carries and I liked the technology of the Prism. I talked to people in the industry who had good luck with the machine, and I decided to go with the Prism because I felt it was the best bang for the buck.”

The Prism line has earned a reputation for high performance, outstanding reliability and state-of-the-art electronics technology, with high-speed steel knives providing long lasting durability. The automated Microcut computer control system is an effective time and cost savings solution. It stores and recalls cutting sequences so the back gauge automatically positions itself for each individual cut. Programs can be uploaded from a network or with a USB device using CIP 3/4 files.

“I really like all the safety features of the machine. The accuracy is dead-on, and the quick cut feature speeds up the process to turn the paper much quicker than the old cutter we replaced. With the automatic cut, I can preset and press a button one time for a series of labels instead of standing there and pressing it each and every time. Overall, I’m very pleased with the whole operation, and the delivery and installation was as simple as it could be.”