A Century of Success

As 2014 winds to a close, The Sheridan Group is eagerly looking forward to the coming year — not just because we’re excited about our future plans, but also because we are celebrating our past. 2015 is a momentous year for Sheridan — specifically The Sheridan Press: We’re turning 100! And we’ll be sharing a century of milestones with you over the course of the year.

A century of change

Take just a moment to consider how the world has changed over the last 100 years.

• We flew across the Atlantic, and didn’t stop until we landed on the moon.
• We went from bikinis to parachute pants and from rock ‘n roll to rap.
• The Great Depression brought us to our knees, and the Tech Boom lifted us higher than ever.
• The invention of the submarine allowed us to travel under the oceans of the world, and the Milky Way candy bar let us enjoy out-of-this-world taste.
• We created assembly lines to boost productivity, and Facebook to wreak havoc with it.
• We’ve gone from a television set in every living room to a smartphone in every hand.

And through it all, Sheridan has been a steadfast partner to our customers.

Which came first?

Chickens, of course.

Sheridan began its existence in 1915 as Everybody’s Poultry magazine — a startup project born of a passion for show chickens. The publisher, C.N. Myers, bought a letterpress and soon realized how valuable his company could be to other publishers. The vision of providing top quality printing services using the latest technology has continued to this day.

Here are a few of the most significant milestones as the company continued its journey.

• 1946 — As the company begins printing for other businesses, it changes its name to Everybody’s Press.
• 1982 — To reflect its increasing emphasis on STM publishing, the company adopts the name of its newest owner, R. Champlin “Champ” Sheridan, to become The Sheridan Press.
• 1984 — TSP begins offering reprints of journal articles through its Sheridan Reprints brand.
• 1988 — The company expands into book publishing with the purchase of book printer Braun-Brumfield, then creates Sheridan Books in 1999 after acquiring Bookcrafters, Inc.
• 1998 — The acquisition of Dartmouth Printing Company is completed, expanding expertise to include short-run magazine publishing and long-run journal publishing.
• 2002 — Dartmouth Journal Services is established to provide full front-end redactory and composition services to the STM community.
• 2003 — TSP enters the digital-only print market with the launch of Sheridan Digital Print.
• 2011 — The Sheridan Technology Lab was created to signify a commitment to developing new publishing technologies in support of content preparation and dissemination.
• 2012 — The Content Delivery Alliance is established for US, Europe, Asia, and Australia.
• 2013 — Sheridan is accepted into the International Print Network (IPN).

A century of learning

Not all companies could survive the twists and turns of a century, and even fewer could continue to offer the quality that Sheridan does. Here’s what we learned over our hundred years of operation:

• Go with your strengths — Our greatest asset is our ability to provide the tools and services that publishers need to get content in the hands of readers.
• Respect expertise — Whenever Sheridan acquired or established a company, we embraced the expertise of its leaders and let them continue to focus on their core business.
• Adapt to customers’ needs — As technology changes, you need to be able to offer what customers need. Sheridan has moved from a single printing press to multiple print options, software solutions, digital media production, and diverse distribution technologies. Publishers know they can look to Sheridan to fulfill their needs. The overriding principle here is keeping the customer top-of-mind in everything that we do.
• Keep the customer in mind in everything you do — Without the loyalty and continued business of our customers, our company would be nowhere near where it is today. By keeping our clients in mind during our day to day business, we can keep our focus on what really matters.

Most of all, remember that it’s important to be proud of where you are today and how you got there, but you need should always be looking to the future for new opportunities.

[cta]Contact your Sheridan representative, Susan Parente at susan.parente@sheridan.com, to learn how Sheridan’s publishing expertise can help you.[/cta]