New family takes over long-time family business

Long-time, multi-generational Havre business Floren's Hill County Printing has been sold to new owners Stacy and Bob Mantle - but, in a sense, the business has stayed in the family.

Former Havre Daily News publisher Stacy Mantle, who had worked at the newspaper for 20 years starting in graphics design for the advertising department, and her husband, Bob Mantle, who works for BNSF Railway, purchased the printing business April 1 and renamed it back to the original Hill County Printing.

The opportunity came for them to buy the business at the right time, Stacy Mantle said.

"I wanted something of my own," she said, "and I liked the idea of still designing. It fit perfectly."

Using a handful of different forms of printing and vinyl cutting, the business produces everything from business cards and stationary to specialty forms, flyers, posters, architectural drawings, menus, ID tags, specialty advertising on pens, signs and more, Mantle said. And is even certified to print, election ballots.

"I never thought in a million years there were so many things that could print that this place did," Mantle said. "Every day it's something different."

The Mantles liked the idea of having their own family business, a place for their kids to start out, and hopefully something to pass along to them, but they also liked that they were getting into an already well-established business.

"We're busy. People are calling in from all over the place, people who have been customers here for many years. That's part of why I kept the Hill County Printing name and didn't personalize it, just because I didn't want to lose any of those customers. It worked, it fits," she added. "I just changed the logo."

Hill County Printing was started in 1963 by Clyde and Evie Floren, said their son Robert, who had co-owned the business with his brother Raymond since 1991, when they added "Floren's" to the business name. Clyde and Evie Floren bought the printing business and equipment from, as it turns out, the Havre Daily News, which, at that time, had a print shop that was separate from the newspaper production side of the business.

The Havre Daily News was located in the building where Shamrock's Bar and Casino is now located on First Street, and the print shop was in the basement, Robert Floren said. All the presses and other equipment had to be brought up out of the basement at the back of the building, hauled two blocks to the back of Hill County Printing's building at 524 First Street and set up.

The Florens not only bought the business, Robert Floren said, they also hired the print shop staff, so they were able to start producing as soon as everything was in place.

The big press was a linotype style that used melted lead to make solid blocks of type that made up each line of text, and Floren said he used to be the helper who melted the lead as Roger Phillipi typed in the text.

"The guy who invented the linotype ended up killing himself, I'm sure," Floren said, jokingly. "I've never seen such a complex piece of machinery in my life. And Roger was a whiz at it."

They used to have five to eight guys working just in the back at one time, Floren said, but with changes in technology, the whole business now can be run with three people.

"What would take probably a half a day to do back then, with three guys, it would take now probably two hours with one person, as far as the technology goes," he added.

A key component of that technology is the computer equipment and programs. Floren said they started using computers in the late 1970s, when they were still cutting and pasting designs onto the page. In the late '80s they upgraded their presses again and started using graphics software, he said. He and his brother took one class to get started and were self-taught beyond that.

Mantle, though, has been designing on and working with computers and electronic equipment through four years of college and her career at the paper so the new programs are coming pretty easily to her, she said.

"It's just like when I started at the paper," she said. "I taught myself Photoshop and InDesign, Quark back then, and now I'm teaching myself CorelDraw. It all ties together coming in here."

Some aspects of the business pose a steeper learning curve than others, and, she added, a few things she sets aside to ask Robert about, but she can usually research the solution to problems she's having.

Mantle said she has a few plans for remodeling and rearranging the showroom along with putting up new signage, but right now doesn't have plans to make business changes. That stability was a large part of the benefit of buying an established business, she said. They could look at the bottom line on the books, and know that they could just hit the ground running with the business as it is.

"I barely have time to go to the bathroom or eat; I don't leave this place during the day at all. It's been crazy busy, and I love it. I'm absolutely happy and my kids are happy and they come in and help when they can," she said.

Along with her two children coming in and her husband filling in at lunchtime and after work, she has hired a press operator and also has a 20-year veteran of the business, Brenda Cox.

"I don't know what I would do without Brenda because she knows everything," Mantle said. "... She's my go-to person."

While it's important to Mantle to now have a family business, she also sees the business as a way to contribute to the community even more than she already does.

She has always found ways either through participation, personal donations or through the paper when she was there to give back to the community, she said, and it made a difference that this was a business that would lend itself to that kind of contribution.

"I can still be active in the community and we can even, hopefully down the road, give back even more than we've done before. With our kids involved with sports, clubs and all that, we can do our part now and help just like the Florens did," she said. "They were really great about donating things and helping out groups, and I'd like to follow in their footsteps and do what I can."

Floren said he and his brother had been working there for 50 years, but ran out of children and grandchildren to run deliveries and help out.

"It got a little bit harder towards the end, so thank god Stacy came in and wanted the place, and we thought, well, it's about time, it's time to turn it over to new thoughts," he said.

Mantle said they have tentatively planned a grand opening for the end of June, but if they stay as busy as they have been then she might not have time. She said she's OK with that, though.

"It's a dream to me, like, this isn't real yet," she said.