Steve DeCollibus, Managing Editor, Circuitnet

“The art of progress is to preserve order amid change, and to preserve change amid order.”

-Alfred North Whitehead

Mr. Whitehead’s quote took on a more practical note for me last Thursday when I arrived at Photo Stencil in Colorado Springs to interview Keith Favre only to learn that he had resigned from the company late the evening before. His departure was announced by Circuitnet on Monday of this week.

The executive team at Photo Stencil, including Todd Woods who is now interim CEO, Dave Doggett, Senior V.P. of Sales, Jim Medina CFO, Jim Reilly, V.P. of R&D and Bill Coleman, V.P. of Technology adjusted smoothly to what could have proven to be a very uncomfortable day and provided me with both a great tour and an enlightening joint interview with the team.

For those of you who may be unfamiliar with Photo Stencil, they have been in business since 1979 and produce about forty products included in these categories: stencils, squeegee blades, screens, inspection, assembly tooling, SMT packaging repair tools and services that provide almost any custom option to a stencil that you can think of, as well as design support and custom engineering.

Photo Stencil has made business decisions and positioned itself over the years as a supplier of stencil technology. They separate themselves from their competition by focusing only on stencil and printing technology. While they can meet the level of customer need and application at all levels, they are uniquely positioned to help with more complex products.

Todd Woods interim CEO, Photo Stencil

Todd Woods, interim CEO said, “The level of product complexity has gone up significantly. We will accept printing and stencil challenges that no one else can do and we will make it happen. Often we will do this with a very short turn around”

While the stencil business tends to be local in many cases, Photo stencil has made strategic business decisions that have increased the company’s footprint to include Asia and South America, with plants in Guadalajara Mexico, Sao Paulo, Brazil and Panang, Malaysia.

Dave Doggett Senior V.P. Sales, Photo Stencil

In the past year, they have moved from inside sales to building a rep force under the leadership of Dave Doggett, Senior VP of Sales. Dave said, “By offering reps the opportunity to partner with a company that is focused on just stencil and stencil printing process, we bring them the ability to deliver a highly diverse stencil and stencil service product line at the local level which creates a more powerful offering for our principals and their customers.”

When asked about future regional development, Jim Medina the CFO of the company said, “What we need to do first is to execute and solidify our current business plans for Asia and Mexico. We have strategic business plans in place for both, and we need to focus on executing those before we move on to the next region.”

Jim Medina CFO, Photo Stencil

He went on to say, “We are in strategy execution mode right now. It is important that we look at the business we have now and make sure we are delivering on that. We want to make sure that our customers are receiving the quality products they need on time. And those customers understand who we are. We are Photo Stencil and we make solutions focused on solving printing problems”

While at present Photo Stencil has been focused on executing business plans, in May of this year they hired Jim Riley as V.P. of R&D. Jim is looking at some of the emerging markets in solar technology as well as the new printed electronics market to see if Photo Stencil can develop opportunities there.

Jim has one of the more unique resumes in the business in that it includes three space walks and 850 hours in space as a mission specialist for NASA.

Bill Coleman Chief Technology Officer, Photo Stencil

The extent of Photo Stencil’s capabilities was demonstrated to me when Bill Coleman, V.P. Technology, took me on a tour of the Colorado Springs facility. The 75,000 square foot facility is state of the art and focused solely on the design and manufacture of stencils and stencil technology.

Bill has been with the company for 20 years and I am sure has been a key factor in the company’s ability to preserve order amid change.

Like other successful companies we have been watching, Photo Stencil has chosen to actively listen to customers, and they have worked to design a business strategy that is focused on seeing that customers receive the support and products they need to be successful.

This focus, that always sounds simple when taken at face value, is often ignored by many companies. This focus is the difference between the great companies and the also rans.