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Thursday, Mar 28, 2024

Signs of the Times

In a back room in a messy store on a nondescript Reseda street, Jeff Villwock operates a screen printer with the calm and precision born of years at the task. Using a squeegee, he spreads white liquid over the screen to create an emblem on a sports shirt one of 200 he’ll decorate over the next couple days. “If I had another person helping me, I’d make more money,” said Villwock, who earned $80,000 in 2006 from his business, “but that’s OK. It’s enough.” Villwock, 42, opened JV Graphic & Sign Productions in Reseda in 1996. Self-taught in the profession, the soft-spoken business owner enjoys being his own boss in his one-man operation. It is an occupation he adopted out of necessity, and one he gradually fell in love with. While in his 20s, Villwock was a shoe-department manager at a Valley May Co. But he got laid off, and that’s when his journey to being a small business owner began. From 1991 to 1993, Villwock sold signs by going door-to-door to Valley companies. While he doesn’t consider himself a born salesman, his perseverance and attitude helped him do well. “You have to be able to handle rejection in a job like that,” he said while silk-screening shirts in his Vanowen Street shop. “You just keep at it. You can’t let rejection bother you.” As time passed, Villwock decided he wanted to create signs rather than sell them. He accepted a position with Signs for Less in Thousand Oaks, where he learned the trade of making company signage. While at Signs for Less, Villwock began dreaming of owning his own sign and silk-screen shop. He began buying presses and other machines, and when laid off from the business in 1996, he took it as a sign (no pun intended) to strike out on his own. Villwock bought out K & D Designs in Reseda for $25,000, Villwock said. The company’s equipment was woefully out of date, but the investment gave him the company’s client list. Looking for business For eight months, Villwock relived his days as a sign salesman, pounding the pavement to drum up business for his fledgling shop. These days, about 75 percent of his time is spent making signs, while the remainder is occupied silk-screening shirts. Villwock has dozens of regular clients, all of whom have their own screen stencils, which resemble a framed picture of a company logo or design, placed in rows in his silk-screening room. Among his best clients are Moorfield Construction and Sierra Management. The most difficult aspect of his job is keeping things afloat when business is slow. And on occasion he runs into a difficult customer. “They are the ones who don’t know what they want,” Villwock said. “I never do anything until I get a deposit,” he said, “because everything is custom.” As for the future, Villwock is gearing up to expand into promotional materials, such as creating political campaign buttons and transferring images and logos onto mouse pads and other surfaces. He hopes to begin purchasing equipment soon. “You get more repeat business doing promotional stuff,” he said. “I’m graduating slowly into a new market.” SPOTLIGHT – JV Graphic & Sign Productions Year Founded: 1996 Revenues in 2005: $75,000 Revenues in 2006: $80,000 Employees in 2005: 1 Employees in 2006: 1

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