As technology grows, father gives way to son

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The argument Tim and Shane Maher had over whether to update the website for Apparel Printers Plus exemplifies why Tim has decided it’s time to turn over the family business in Victor to Shane, his son.

Tim confesses he just isn’t that comfortable with the fast-moving new technology of retail.

“I’m an older dog that says if the wheel’s round, don’t re-create it,” Tim said. To appeal to a younger audience, his 14-year-old company needs a younger person in charge, he said.

“It needs new leadership. It needs a new face,” said Tim, 59, of the business he built starting in 2004.

Shane, 32, won the website argument, by the way. Now he wants to add new online features including the ability to design and place customized orders, and even create online stores for companies so their employees can order clothing and other items emblazoned with the company name.

“I’m interested to stand out from behind his shadow and create my own shadow,” Shane said.

Tim will remain involved with the corporate end of the business, which owns Apparel Printers Plus, The Embroidery Loft LLC in Fairport, Pillows Talk, and another company in development. He described his duties as handling the banking and following the bottom line of the companies.

“Shane has full responsibility for this division,” Tim said of Apparel Printers Plus. Formerly head of the manufacturing part of the business, Shane Maher will now become president. He’s also involved in Pillows Talk, which creates pillows featuring printed words or images such as each of the Finger Lakes.

“My end is developing an online presence,” Shane Maher said.

But talk of titles is academic with the two men. As with many small companies, they both do a variety of jobs as needed.

“We’re all the bottle washers, the cooks,” Tim said.

The younger Maher indirectly got his father started in the business of apparel printing and customizing. When Shane was playing hockey as a teenager, his father (a displaced Kodak worker) was part of the booster organization that supplied uniforms. After working as a customer with a company that printed the uniforms, Tim decided the work seemed interesting. He worked for someone else’s company for a while and then started his own in 2004.

Tim started out as a sales representative for a printed apparel manufacturer, dedicating a 10-foot-by-10 foot room in his house to manage the business. He later moved to a space in East Victor later, starting with 900 square feet and growing as the business grew. He bought his first piece of printing equipment in 2006 — it’s still used as backup — and eventually moved to the current location at 67 E. Main St., when that building became available.

The Main Street location features several rooms in back for manufacturing and a storefront with a showroom in front to view samples and place orders. Both men’s dogs are a fixture in the showroom, too, as they come to work each day with their masters.

Shane joined the business almost by accident. As a senior business administration student, he had lined up an internship that suddenly evaporated when the company went out of business at the height of the Great Recession. Tim talked to his company’s accountant, who found a project Shane was able to do to meet his internship requirements. When Shane graduated in 2009, he found himself competing for jobs with people with MBAs and five or more years of experience, again because of the recession. And so he came to work for Dad, starting in sales and then becoming an expert in embroidery machines and multi-color printers.

Nearly all of the artwork printed or embroidered on items at the company is created in-house, Tim said.

To allow Shane to really move up now, though, the Mahers have to solve a hiring issue — finding people who want to learn the manufacturing end of the business. So far they haven’t found the right people for the jobs, which can earn more than $50,000 a year depending on skill.

Like the Mahers, the new employees most likely will be people who are willing to learn the trade from the bottom up, Tim said.

Shane added, “We’re looking for future partners, not employees.”

The Mahers declined to share their revenue, but Tim said the company has grown every year it’s existed. He attributes some of that to customer service, including solving problems for Apparel Printers Plus customers, and Shane appears ready to continue that practice. To make the online stores less cumbersome for teams or companies that set them up, for instance, Apparel Printers Plus will fold, bag and label each item for the individual team members or employees and deliver them to the company to distribute, Shane said. That’ll take a load of work off a customer’s staff.

“I’m excited about him taking this over,” Tim said. “I’ve grown this as far as I can.”

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