Cover Story
Co-founders Gary Stone (left) and Jim White. Photo by Bob Zemba, Simple Truth Imaging
Jim White calls them ‘transformations.’
Architectural transformations, to be more precise. These are graphics such as wall coverings, murals, treatments for ceilings and windows, door wraps, and more.
They help individual businesses create environments that stand out, that help attract and retain employees, and that probably help improve productivity, said White, noting that these transformations have become a big part of the growing portfolio of products and services at East Longmeadow-based Go Graphix, which he founded with partner Gary Stone in 2005.
“These days, businesses want to create a more-exciting environment, something that’s a little more welcoming, more interesting, more brand-centric,” said White, noting that the company has created architectural graphics for a wide range of businesses and institutions, from Baystate Children’s Hospital to Central High School; UMass Amherst Athletics to the new Doherty Memorial High School in Worcester; White Lion Brewing to Providence College.
These architectural installations represent just one example of how this company, which started humbly, handling mostly printing and copying services, has achieved a transformation itself, into a multi-faceted branding firm with a roster of products and services — from signs to vehicle wrapping — best summed up by its own marketing slogans — ‘’branding where you need it,’ and ‘you name it, we’re on it.’
Go Graphix is an intriguing business story, one that brings together many of the elements of entrepreneurship — especially a desire to leave the corporate world behind and start a business from scratch, a decision White and Stone made together, over time, while working for medical laser producers Biolitec and then Lumenis.
White was serving the latter as director of Global Marketing, and Stone as national sales manager, when they decided to ditch the travel, time away from their families, and ample amounts of stress for … well, less travel, more time with their families, but often more stress and of a different kind.
“These days, businesses want to create a more-exciting environment, something that’s a little more welcoming, more interesting, more brand-centric.”
As they looked back on 20 years in business — and expansion from a tiny storefront in East Longmeadow to two adjacent buildings in the town’s industrial park — they talked about the roller coaster ride that is entrepreneurship, how nothing has really come easy, but also how there are many rewards from persevering and working through the hard times.
“Our persistence is definitely what kept us going,” said Stone. “We had many opportunities to quit or to get back into our cushy corporate jobs, but we never turned back; when we made the decision to start our own business and build it, it was pedal to the metal.
“We just kept moving forward,” he went on. “And whenever we came up on any obstacles or challenges, we made a commitment to each other that we could keep powering through and someday reap the benefits of business ownership.”
White concurred, noting that there have been many challenges along the way, from the Great Recession, which hit just a few years after they opened, to COVID, which brought most of the traditional work to a standstill, and early on, the loss of a major fleet-wrapping client.
Jim White says Go Graphix has evolved over 20 years, cultivating new markets such as vehicle wrapping and architectural graphics.
Photo by Bob Zemba, Simple Truth Imaging
“We’ve rolled with the punches and learned some important lessons along the way,” he said, adding that resilience is perhaps the company’s strongest trait.
Both partners agreed that, while the cultivation of new business lines, such as vehicle wrapping, architectural installations, and signage of all kinds has been a key to success, a bigger factor has been relationship-building, which has enabled the company to add and retain customers and generate all-important repeat business, often across several different product lines.
For this issue, BusinessWest talked at length with White and Stone about their journey, where it has taken them to date, and where they might go next.
Plane Speaking
While working for Biolitec and then Lumenis, White and Stone spent a considerable amount of time in airplanes, hotel rooms, restaurants, and trade show floors.
And while passing that time talking business, they also spent it talking about going into business for themselves. And the seriousness of those conversations picked up in intensity the more they were away from home and their families.
“We both had young children … Jim had three and I had four, and we were on the road a lot,” Stone recalled, adding that the two were very good at what they did, and the more they succeeded for their corporate bosses, the more that was demanded of them in terms of being on the road.
“I remember looking at my schedule at one point, I was going to be gone 17 out of the next 23 weekends,” said Stone. “And I said, ‘that’s enough; I’ve got to make a change.’”
White had reached the same conclusion and had many of the same recollections.
“Our persistence is definitely what kept us going. We had many opportunities to quit or to get back into our cushy corporate jobs, but we never turned back; when we made the decision to start our own business and build it, it was pedal to the metal.”
“All the money in the world didn’t mean as much to me as my wife and kids, and Gary felt the same way,” he recalled. “And there was just enough shakiness in the business to make a dream materialize. Gary and I were together for many of those trips; you talk about what your life goals are and what’s meaningful to you. I always wanted to own a business, and so did he.”
Fast-forward a year or so, and White and Stone were talking with BusinessWest inside a storefront (a former coffee roaster) in the Heritage Park Plaza in East Longmeadow about their new venture. They didn’t have any furniture at the time, so they talked while sitting in lawn chairs.
Mostly, they talked about leaving corporate America and going into business for themselves. As for their chosen enterprise, they said it came about after considerable discussion about what was needed in the community, what would succeed business-wise, and how they could best deploy their respective talents. In short, they said it was a work in process, a trend that has continued for the past two decades.
“We weren’t sure exactly what we’d do at that point, but we did know that we could sell, and we could market it,” said Stone. “Those are good skill sets to have if you’re going to start a business.”
Their start, as noted earlier, was as a basic print shop, providing many of the same services as the Staples across the street.
“We were just doing copies and prints, and it was just ‘the lowest price wins,’” Stone recalled. “It was a very frustrating, very-low-margin kind of business model that we didn’t enjoy much.”
Gary Stone says resilience has been the company’s best character trait.
Photo by Bob Zemba, Simple Truth Imaging
White recalled that the two struggled in the beginning, printing flyers, business cards, and similar products, and tried to be all things to its clients, and that formula wasn’t working.
“We’d think it up, design it up, and try to produce it,” he recalled. “And we found a love and passion for designing it, making it, and installing it.”
Relatively early on, White and Stone recognized an opportunity with vehicle graphics, an emerging market at the time, and bought a printer that enabled them to produce those products. This was the company’s start in the large-format business.
“We saw the vehicle-graphics market and said, ‘no one owns this,’” White recalled. “We said, ‘let’s be known for something, let’s be the guys,’ and strategically, we went after it.
“I remember looking at my schedule at one point, I was going to be gone 17 out of the next 23 weekends. And I said, ‘that’s enough; I’ve got to make a change.’”
“What you had was a convergence of technologies to make it happen,” he went on. “It wasn’t just the printing … it was the printing, the inks, the media, and the adhesives; you could print something on vinyl, but would it stick? We were at the right place at the right time.”
Covering All the Bases
They started with smaller businesses that provided an opportunity to learn while doing, said White, adding that the company eventually moved on to fleets, such as the 1,200 Edible Arrangements vehicles, and work that was truly national in scope.
“We got really good at it,” said White, adding that the company would survive the loss of the Edible Arrangements account — one third of its overall business at the time — and learn valuable lessons from that experience about diversification and not putting so many eggs in one basket.
Today, vehicle graphics remains a large part, maybe 30% of the overall portfolio at Go Graphix, with several large fleets in the fold, from Maybury Material Handling to Blinds to Go.
And that work wrapping vehicles, helped inspire the next leap for the company, if you will.
“We figured that, if we could wrap contoured vehicles, it can’t be too hard to install this vinyl on walls and windows that are flat,” Stone told BusinessWest. “So, we started studying the different kinds of vinyls we could use for those applications.”
And after gaining needed certifications and making its entry into that specialty, the company soon identified a market to pursue — higher education and school systems, said White, adding that these installations help schools in this market, and well beyond it, “attract, retain, and motivate students.”
It’s the same with businesses and their employees.
“In the corporate world, it’s ‘how do I get these people back?’” he said, referring to the emergence of remote work and the ongoing struggle to get people to return to the office, adding that one way to do that is to create an environment that is more colorful, and more fun.
Consistent investment in new technology and equipment has been one of the keys to success at Go Graphix.
Photo by Bob Zemba, Simple Truth Imaging
The company’s offices boast some of these architectural elements, although in many cases they represent earlier generations of the product lines. The main conference room, for example, features the company’s name and logo in a faux-brick product, as well as hundreds of colored tiles that come together like a jig-saw puzzle. Meanwhile, the break room takes on a patriotic tone, with images and quotes from the likes of Benjamin Franklin and Harry Truman.
And in White’s office, one wall is covered with an image from the 2017 Super Bowl, when Patriots’ running back James White (yes, they share the same name) scored the winning touchdown in overtime.
But it’s what they do for other businesses that has made this a fast-growing portion of the portfolio, said White, adding that the company is working with a wide range of clients, not just on architectural graphics, but also signage and other way-finding elements.”
Indeed, one key to the company’s success is its vertical integration, handling many different needs for the same customer, such as UConn, for which the company has handled both architectural graphics and wraps for the buses transporting its athletic teams.
Pivot Moves
As they talked about continually rewriting the business plan and shifting to meet emerging needs in the market, Stone and White said COVID added several exclamation points to that line of thinking.
And as he got into that discission, Stone flashed back to a meeting with some administrators at Baystate Health about work the company was doing for the system, and what it could do moving forward.
“I was ready to shake their hands as they were coming in, and they said, ‘we can’t do that anymore,’ he recalled, adding that this was very early in 2020, before most in this region had a good understanding of what COVID was. “They said they could tap feet or bump elbows — that was it.
“We did our presentation, talked about our services and projects we’d done with them,” he went on. “I asked the group if there was anything outside of what they know we do that they would have a need for. And one of them said, ‘do you guys make those sneeze guards?’”
The answer was, essentially, ‘no but we could,’ he went on, adding that a few months later, those acrylic shields — as well as ‘stay 6 feet apart’ signs and other items — not only rescued the company at a time when the phones simply stopped ringing, but contributed to what was its best year to that date.
And that pivoting represents perhaps the best example of how the company has responded to change and created new markets for itself.
“We changed our business model a number of times over the years,” said Stone. “When things were going well, we went in that direction, when they didn’t go well, we went in a different direction. And I think we grew smartly; we didn’t grow too big too fast. We did it in a smart way where we added people and added equipment as needed and went after markets where we thought we could be the best.
“Jim and I are both guys where we never got up any morning in our lives and said, ‘let’s be mediocre today,’” he went on. “We’re two guys who get up every day and say, ‘if we’re going to do something, we’re going to be the best at it.’”
White agreed.
“I’ve never been able to really relax,” he explained. “We’re always, always fully focused and looking at everything closely. Maybe it’s over the top, but it’s the only way to keep this a top-notch organization.”
Another element of the company’s growth is team building, said Stone.
“A key part of our success over the years has been to surround ourselves with good people who wanted to be here every day, who enjoyed the work we do, who really bought into our purpose and our mission, and saw opportunity working here,” he said. “Our clients really enjoy working with us and with our people; we know that business is built on relationships, and we’re done a really good job of building relationships and building loyal clients over the years.”
Another key part of their success is continuously setting the bar higher.
We had a great year in 2024, and we celebrated,” said Stone. “But we start at zero at the start of the next year; we’re always looking to go above and beyond what we did previously, and we have a team behind us that is focused on those same goals.”
