Midwest SignTech has been doing vehicle wraps, graphics and signage banners at their Rochester location for years and owner Dustin Snell acquired the business in 2007 after working with the previous owner for about ten months. In 2014 they purchased screen printing equipment and set up their production shop where the cafeteria used to be in the old West Concord High School building.
The business has grown and now screen printing shirts amount to about half of their business each year. They ship shirts all over the United States and Canada. One of their biggest clients is the Big Iron Classic held in Kasson each fall. They print 2,000 t-shirts for the event each year. Trucking companies account for many of their sales as they take pride in exclusive designs on their shirts.
Dustin originally was an iron worker for about eight years but after an injury he decided to use his mind instead of his muscles and took a job in a print shop. He started by hand drawing a photo onto stationary. Realizing his potential he enrolled in a Minneapolis Art School where he graduated with honors earning a Bachelors degree six months early.
Dustin draws the design on a computer and it can take up to sixty hours to complete the image for a shirt. They have a ten-station press, which allows them to produce a nine color shirt. With one color they can print about five hundred shirts per hour. The set up for the multi color designs is very time consuming so there is a minimum order requirement for the intricate multi-colored designs. The press is temperature controlled. It has to be 120 degrees to begin and 345 degrees to set the ink on the shirt.
Dustin and Christine Snell operate the business along with a couple employees. An average year will see orders of more than 30,000 t shirts designed, printed and shipped out of the facility.
