Local commercial printers to merge

Two of Rochester’s largest commercial printers have merged, consolidating space and staff in Henrietta.

Canfield & Tack Printing Inc., an employee-owned printer, and Cohber Press plan to operate as one company from Cohber Press’s John Street location in Henrietta. Although financial details of the merger were not disclosed, the combined company will have more than $24 million in annualized billings.

Canfield & Tack President Ray Brown and Cohber Press President and CEO Eric Webber have known each other since high school, but in the last year they began discussing the possibility of working together, officials said Thursday. Canfield & Tack needed more space and Cohber had it.

Additionally, the two companies have similar offerings including digital printing capabilities, wide-format printing, fulfillment and more.

“There was so much synergy between our companies—from our operations to our customer base to the equipment needed to serve our clients,” Brown said in a statement. “We realized by combining these two companies it would provide a major growth opportunity for both our businesses through an extended service offering for all of our clients.”

Canfield & Tack employs 60 people at its Exchange Street site, while Cohber has 47 workers. The combined company will be employee-owned and will take on the moniker of Canfield & Tack. Webber and Brown in a phone call Thursday said they plan to evaluate their needs in terms of total workforce requirements moving forward.

“We’ve got weeks of planning before we move everybody together,” Webber said. “We’ve got some retirements coming up, we’ve got some adjustments that have been made in the past month or two.”

Webber said their biggest concern at the moment is ensuring that the two companies can cover all the work they have going on, and having a full workforce will be crucial to that. The two company leaders also noted they will keep the vast majority of both companies’ equipment in order to get the work out, although there are some overlaps that will not be moved from one facility to another. Brown also noted that Cohber had recently installed a digital inkjet press that Canfield & Tack had been looking at, so there were some unexpected synergies as well.

“Together we bring over 180 years of experience to the printing industry,” Webber said in Thursday’s announcement. “We can assure our loyal customer base that they will continue to receive the highest quality of work and unparalleled customer service, as we use the best printing technologies available.”

The merger is expected to be complete by June 1, at which time Brown will take on the role of president and CEO and Webber will serve as director of business development and a member of the board.

Canfield & Tack was founded in 1926 by Hubert Canfield and Larry Tack as a lithographic printer. It became an ESOP in 1994 when Tack’s son and owner, Daniel, decided to step away from the company. Brown joined the firm in 1989 and became president in 2005.

Cohber was founded in 1931 by Samuel Cohn and Webber’s grandfather, Howard Webber Sr. The duo took the first three letters of Cohn’s name and the last three letters from Webber’s to form the name. Eric Webber joined the company in 1986 following his college graduation. Webber has since purchased the company from his father.

Canfield & Tack specializes in large volume color printing of marketing collateral, brochures, point-of-purchase displays and more, while Cohber is a strategic marketing and graphic communications firm specializing in producing high-end marketing collateral, direct mail and data-driven communications.

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