Bobby Edwards

Bobby Edwards has printing in his blood – with his father, grandfather, an aunt, and others thriving in the industry. So, it was no surprise when a customer at a carwash he ran while attending school suggested he talk to the owner of Progress Printing. That was 36 years ago. “I’ve stayed because it is a small but mighty company. My colleagues are more like familyand friends,” he says. “I love the flexibility and willingness to adapt to change quickly so we can support our customers and still balance our personal lives.”

Where does his can-do attitude come from? “I’ve always loved a challenge, and printing is always that,” he said. He’s also competitive, he says, working to do the best possible jobregardless of which hat he is wearing. (And he has worn a lot of them over the years.)

One challenging project he recalls came early in his stint as Project Manager when they were hired to print the Venezuela voter ballots. “There were over a hundred candidates, and each ballot was individually numbered and had to be sized precisely to be read by a tally machine,” he recalls. “We had to print many thousands of these for each candidate and keep them separated. When the officials came to test the accuracy of the ballots here at PPC, let’s just say it got very tense with some foreign representatives when the machine wouldn’t read the ballots. But we were confident in our product, and it turned out we were right. The issue was with the machines they brought.”

Overall, he says, his favorite projects have been the ones that involved a team of peoplehelping the customer get what they envision. “Providing the quality, meeting the schedule,and being within the budget is very rewarding.”