NW printers dominate.

Standard Register of Fayetteville Leads With $54 Million in Revenues

EVEN THOUGH CENTRAL Arkansas has the state's largest population, the three largest printing companies are in Fayetteville and Fort Smith.

The primary reason, according to John Beckmann of No. 3 Packaging Specialties Inc. in Fayetteville, is that the state's largest industries are in northwest Arkansas.

Standard Register Co. of Fayetteville is the largest printing company in the state, with $54.4 million in 1992 revenues, according to Arkansas Business' annual survey. That's $13 million more than No. 2 Transkrit Corp. of Fort Smith.

Packaging Specialties, with $25 million in revenues in 1992, does much of its printing for Tyson Foods Inc. of Springdale, Simmons Industries Inc. in Siloam Springs, Hudson Foods Inc. in Rogers and ConAgra Inc. Packaging Specialties prints product identification information, company logos and promotional information on the clear plastic film used to wrap the product. It also prints film wrapping beverage products such as Pepsi-Cola.

Beckmann says Packaging Specialties considered Little Rock when it moved its operations from Chicago to Arkansas 18 years ago, but specifically located in Fayetteville because of the processing plants.

"We grew with these companies," Beckmann says. "The first year here, we did $365,000 in sales."

The largest printing company in central Arkansas is Democrat Printing & Lithographing Co. of Little Rock, which had $21 million in revenues last year.

DP&L prints magazines and publications for such companies as Time Warner Inc. and Capital Cities/ABC Inc. Its central location is one advantage for being contracted by those firms, according to Haynes Whitney, the firm's president.

"If you have a nationally distributed magazine, your best bet is to mail out of the center of the country because you minimize the number of |postal~ zones you have to cross," Whitney says.

Whitney says DP&L does not compete with other Arkansas companies for the magazine publications. Most of its competition comes from Memphis, Tenn., Kansas City, Mo., and Chicago.

Parkin Printing Inc. of Little Rock, which has invested more than $4 million in new equipment and facilities in the past two years, seeks to increase sales by $2 million in the next two years.

Tom Graves, Parkin's president, believes the goal is possible if politicians don't tinker with the economy.

Economy is Recovering

"We've had our best two years ever," Graves says. "If the economists and politicians will keep their mouths shut, we'll be OK.

"Everybody wants to give us numbers and figures and scare tactics to scare people in order to get what they want. The economy is recovering and has been for some time. I think it should continue if they would keep it out of the news and the political chess game and allow business to go forward."

Parkin does 80 percent of its business with out-of-state firms, including Shell Oil Co., Mobil Oil Corp. and Citgo Petroleum Corp. Graves says Parkin monthly prints 30 million statement inserts that are included with customers' bills.