rF LiveBroadcast Zachary Traxler of Traxler Printing

A happy of screen printing transforming into one of the top screen printing shops in North America.

Zachary Traxler, CEO of Traxler Printing, started screen-printing as a hobby in his basement. His father, owner of a “California Myth” T-Shirt Shop, Surf Ohio helped drive Zach’s passion into his businesses today. After not getting the success that he wanted from college, Zach dropped out and interned at a local internet company working IT, while making t-shirts on the side. In 2011, Zach quit his job and opened up Traxler Printing, where many of his father’s accessories are printed today. “It’s been nothing but up from there,” Zach exclaims.

Employee Focused

Currently, the company is moving to a larger location. “We are going from a garage shop to a factory status” says Zach. “September 2010 it was an idea and today, we’re one of the fastest growing, highest rated, top 30 screen printing shops in North America.” Traxler is accredited to the Fair Labor Association, which gives them a lot of traction. In fact, Traxler Printing is known to retain employees. “Our industry has a high turn-over rate” says Zach. “What we focus on is creating a culture, being prideful about things that you’re working on, where you are from”. “A lot of shops that I’ve been in, there’s a lot of friction and infighting…we tried to turn that on itself and create healthy competitions.” Employees at Traxler Printing are cross-trained in hopes of making the company more efficient. Zach says, “you can’t go to school to learn this stuff…there’s people knocking at the door everyday reminding us that as soon as there’s a position open they’d like to work for us.”

Buy Local, Buy Ohio

Traxler Printing goes by the motto, ‘Buy local, Buy Ohio’. Zachary believes that the fastest way to get things is locally. “It may not be the cheapest”, he says “we primarily do that to help stimulate Ohio’s economy and retain Ohio jobs”. There’s a stigma on buying locally, explains Zach. “We are proving a point to most other businesses and owners that said it couldn’t be done as far as sourcing locally for their industry”. A lot of the local suppliers become long-term clients, says Zach, so it pays off. Being a small company, Zach started utilizing the strategy of bartering their printing for services. “One of our first clients was WCBE 90.5 FM, we bartered for an invoice value for a sponsorship and that’s what led to a lot of growth in 2011”.

With the new move will come new changes to Traxler Printing. Zachary hopes to soon integrate a new design studio onto their website where customers can customize more products than just apparel. “We’re a shop that allows you to bring in your own products…a lot of other shops won’t do that”. “There’s typically no minimums” says Zach, “our family has been in the industry for 41 years…we are a five star rated company…anything that can be printed at all, come to us first.”

Check out the full interview with Zachary Traxler on our YouTube page and visit their website for more details!