THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, June 9, 1996 TAG: 9606070193
SECTION: PORTSMOUTH CURRENTS PAGE: 18 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Business
SOURCE: BY IDA KAY JORDAN, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 138 lines
RACHEL SCREEN PRINTING likely isn't a familiar name to most people.
But odds are that many people know the company's work.
At least a million people who bought a Reebok T-shirt last year are wearing a Rachel creation. Untold thousands of others know the company by a different name.
The shirts - along with caps, jackets and anything else that can be printed - are rolling out of Portsmouth now.
Bob Judd, owner of Rachel Screen Printing, bought the building on Claremont Drive that housed the London Fog plant in Portsmouth for 27 years. He moved from leased space on Virginia Beach Boulevard in Norfolk on May 1.
``We had the best month we ever had in March,'' Judd said. ``We shipped 200,000 T-shirts.''
The move slowed production a little in April, but not for long.
``We went down April 24, and the next Wednesday we were back in business in Portsmouth,'' he said.
On May 1, he had one press working. The next day, two presses were going.
``By Saturday, everything was up, and we had done 50,000 pieces in the time we were supposed to be down,'' Judd said.
To describe this 41-year-old entrepreneur as enthusiastic about his business is an understatement.
When Mayor Gloria Webb walked in the front door for an official opening on May 31, Judd was ecstatic.
``This is great, this is wonderful!'' he exclaimed. ``The mayor's here for our opening!''
Judd's enthusiasm belies the hard work that it takes to make the business go.
He added that his spontaneous personality is not always the asset it might seem to be. He's the type of person who says exactly what's on his mind.
``They say I'm a perfectionist, and even when I'm trying to compliment an employee, I just naturally tell them how they could be even better,'' he said. ``I'm trying to learn.''
The company employs 30 people and has hired some of them from the neighborhood around the new facility.
Judd says that the vacancies that came with the move were $5-an-hour jobs in shipping that did not pay enough for people who might have to drive from Virginia Beach to Portsmouth.
``But people around here want to work, and that's the good thing about this location,'' he said. ``Some even walk to work.''
The new work space has some amenities the company's workers didn't have before, including central air conditioning.
Judd said there are about 70 screen-printing companies in this area and few, if any, have air-conditioned work space.
``It helps people work better,'' he said. ``And I have great people. I'm just the mouth. They're the workers.''
To mark the official opening, the workers got a two-hour lunch break and a catered lunch.
Aside from the air conditioning, moving into 42,000 square feet from 20,000 square feet also has created better working conditions.
Judd has done a mammoth cosmetic job on the cinder-block building that had deteriorated greatly since London Fog closed in 1993.
``What you've done with this building is truly amazing,'' Mayor Webb told Judd.
``Everything here needed work,'' he said, adding that he thinks he got a good buy.
Judd paid $450,000 for the property, which is assessed by the city at $898,000.
``It's what we need now, and we have room to expand on the land we bought,'' he said. ``I expect to be expanding.''
Rachel's history is a success story.
Judd said he got an associate's degree in hotel and restaurant management from Tidewater Community College after he graduated from Booker T. Washington High School in Norfolk.
``Then I was the youngest manager Econo Lodge had, and I traveled around the country working at one place, then another,'' Judd said.
That got old, so he quit.
``I tried crabbing and then construction and development,'' he said. He added that his father was beginning to wonder what was going to happen to his son.
In 1982, when he was 28 years old, he started the screen-printing business in his tiny kitchen in Lake Edward Townhomes in Virginia Beach.
``We started with $150 and made our first press,'' Judd said.
From the kitchen, the company moved to the back end of a garage owned by the father of a man who was in the business with him at first.
``We were printing numbers on shirts,'' he said. ``First, we did work for Wards Corner Sporting Goods, and then we got a lot of the other sports stores.''
The first partner left, and Judd's current partner, Don Burgess, came on board in 1984. Burgess is a designer and does art for custom work.
The company moved to leased quarters on Sunnyside Drive in Virginia Beach and bought a hand-press to expand capabilities.
The business quickly outgrew the space and moved to Live Oak Drive in Chesapeake.
``Then we bought our first automatic press,'' he said. ``And we grew and grew and grew - and grew.''
In 1988, the company moved to Virginia Beach Boulevard and stayed for eight years.
Tim Butler of Stoughton, Mass., a design and development manager with Reebok, came to Portsmouth for the official opening of the new quarters.
He said Rachel does the best work he has found on the East Coast.
``We use several companies, but most of them are on the West Coast,'' he said. ``I really like to work with Bob Judd.''
He said he is a ``conscientious person.''
Reebok, of course, is an important account for the company.
The Reebok account came to Judd after he did some promotional shirts for Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream.
``Reebok wanted a black T-shirt that looked good,'' Judd said. ``Tim saw the Ben and Jerry's shirt, and came to us.''
Judd said the dark shirts printed by his company are sought after because they are soft and comfortable.
Actually, Judd had attempted to sell his services to Nike before he got the work from Reebok.
``I had three old, worn-out pairs of Nikes, and I bundled them up and sent them to the president of the company, saying I liked his product and I was sure he'd like ours,'' Judd recounted.
It was a sales gimmick he hoped would get a Reebok contract for Rachel Screen Printing.
That whole effort backfired, Judd said. The president who received the worn-out shoes responded well, he said, and suggested to some of his people that they get in touch with us.
``But I soon found out that the guy in charge of buying T-shirts didn't think too much of my sales pitch,'' Judd said. ``He thought I'd be a troublemaker because I went over his head to the president to try to sell to them.
Asked to explain the name Rachel, Judd said it is a legacy from his first partner.
``I told him he could name it because I was no good at stuff like that,'' he said. ``He wanted to call it Rachel, a biblical name which means lamb or ewe. He saw us as little lambs following Christ.''
Is he religious?
``Well, right now I've sort of backslid,'' he said. ``But I'll tell you this. God provided this building for us. It is so right.'' ILLUSTRATION: Staff photo by MARK MITCHELL
Tim Butler of Stoughton, Mass., a design and development manager
with Reebok, talks with Bob Judd, owner of Rachel's Screen Printing,
at the opening of the new Portsmouth plant. Reebok is one of Judd's
biggest customers. by CNB