McCann family keeps Springfield Blue Print rolling

Surveyor and engineer Charles McCann founded Springfield Blue Print in 1930, becoming the first of three Charles McCanns to be involved in the company. Springfield Blue Print has been a family business since its inception when it copied blue prints and legal documents through a process called Photostat, said President Chuck McCann, grandson of founder Charles McCann.

“Copiers weren’t around back then,” McCann said.

Springfield Blue Print did the only Photostat work in the region, creating some interesting jobs, said Charles Gordon McCann, Chuck’s father.

“I can remember the FBI getting my Dad up in the middle of the night to copy stuff for them,” Gordon McCann said. “We lived up above the office for a number of years.”

The company also did work for Kewpie doll creator Rose O’Neill.

“I knew her really well,” McCann said. “She and (her sister) Callista both were in all of the time when she was working on Ho-Ho. Her nephew had a radio repair shop next door, so I saw her a lot.”

Springfield Blue Print has evolved with the times – from Photostats to an online plan room that posts blueprints of construction jobs and allows contractors to place bids.

“We are always looking at ways to add value for our customers, and this definitely adds value,” Chuck McCann said of the online feature at www.dpr.spfdblue.com.

Family ties

Chuck McCann formally joined the company in 1979 after graduating from college, just as his father had done in the mid-1950s.

“When my grandfather went off to World War II, my grandmother ran the company,” McCann said. “My dad and I both worked here on and off during the summers and after school while we were growing up. My sister, Abba Korosic, works in our bookkeeping department.”

McCann is quick to mention that the company’s employees, many of whom have been with Springfield Blue Print for more than 10 years, are as key to the company’s success as his family.

“We have very low turnover, which is very important to us because having qualified employees who are able to take on different areas of the business has allowed us to grow and expand,” he said.

Printing progress

While the decades have not changed the nature the McCann’s business, technological advances have altered the way they do business.

Springfield Blue Print has diversified in order to stay competitive; the company sells and services large format plotters, copiers and scanners. Its geographic market has expanded with time.

“We go into northwest Arkansas, eastern Kansas and Oklahoma, over to Poplar Bluff and up to Rolla. Our clients … are mainly design firms, city engineers, advertising agencies, architects and manufacturers,” McCann said.

Another significant portion of the company’s business is reprographics and color graphics. Reprographics is the reproduction of construction documents – now featured in the online plan room. This feature allows customers to post plans for available projects, or to view plans and bid on jobs.

McCann said that with this service, Springfield Blue Print is “taking over the distribution of information that people used to have to handle on staff.

“It’s something that they don’t have to manage, phone calls they don’t have to field.”

Springfield Blue Print also specializes in large-format color graphics such as displays for trade shows and mounting and laminating documents.

“We do signage, point-of-purchase items, displays. Many of our clients in the color graphics are ad companies with national customers,” McCann said.

Springfield advertising and marketing firm The Marlin Company has worked with Springfield Blue Print for the past eight years.

“We use them because they make us look good. We use them for digital outputs – posters, banners, trade show support, and mock-ups,” said Bill Mammorella, print production manager at The Marlin Company.

Fighting obsolescence

Satisfying customers can be a difficult task in a field where costly equipment is constantly becoming outmoded.

“You used to buy a blueprint machine for $20,000 and it was good for 10 or 15 years. Today, you are buying printers and plotters that are $50,000, and five or six years from now there’s going to be something better and faster,” said McCann, who declined to disclose company revenues.

Springfield Blue Print combats this problem by thoroughly researching each piece of equipment purchased. The support of professional organizations such as the International Reprographics Association and the cooperative Reprographic Services Association alleviates strain as well.

“It keeps us in tune with what is going on in the marketplace. We go to educational meetings and training and we get to see what other companies are doing,” McCann said.

McCann believes in the next 75 years, the role of his business in the Springfield community will have changed very little.

“I see us distributing information the way we always have, but the way we do it will change,” he said. “I think the equipment for what we do is just going to keep getting better and faster. We have been very fortunate to be in an area of the country that is constantly growing and is very diversified. We are able to diversify because this area is not tied to just one industry.”