Robert and Amy Miller enjoy running their printing company, Anaheim-based Lester Lithograph Inc., together, but for years they tried to guard their four children from feeling pressured to join them.
The couple later found a way to integrate their family and company, and neither has ever been better.
The fine art and commercial printing services company won the 2015 Family Owned Business Award in the small-employer category at the Business Journal’s annual awards luncheon at the Hotel Irvine on July 29 (see related stories, pages 1, 5, 6 and 7). It employs 26 at its 26,000-square-foot facility and is on track for 30% growth this year. The company services clients throughout the country.
California Start
Robert Miller, the chief executive, grew up in the printing industry. His father, Frank, moved to California from Arkansas when he was 18 and started a printing services brokerage in 1968. He began to learn how to work printing machines and soon bought a small printing press of his own.
Frank founded Miller Graphics and grew it into a profitable printing operation where all of the children worked at one point in their lives.
“My dad really worked his tail off,” Robert said. “He was very much the bootstraps entrepreneur and had that spirit of wanting to build something on his own.”
The company was profitable but stayed small.
Robert had a vision of growth and eventually bought his dad’s 100% interest in Miller Graphics in 2006. Nearly a year and a half later, he seized what he believed to be the best opportunity for the growth he’d envisioned.
Miller Graphics merged with Lester Lithograph, whose next generation didn’t want to take on the responsibility of running the business.
“Because we had always stayed small, at the time I was looking for ways to grow either organically or through an acquisition,” Robert said. “Lester Lithograph had grown and had seen some growing pains in doing so, but the companies were a perfect fit, and the owner was looking for an exit.”
Lester Lithograph was also a family-owned company, created by Georgiana and Larry Lester in 1980 in the same warehouse where Robert and Amy currently continue operations. Georgiana and one of her children still work at the company.
All four have ventured into their own areas of interest. The youngest, Luke, is in high school and showing interest in working in the family business.
As the kids started to grow and become more independent—the Millers have two daughters, ages 21 and 19, and two sons ages 18 and 15)—Amy said she started to spend more time at the office and take on more leadership.
“For me, the family is a really important microcosm of community,” Amy said. “To have a workplace that is like a family, in addition to our own biological family, shapes how we all work out conflict, communicate, and encourage each other. I love the parallels between the two.”
Amy is now getting her graduate degree at the University of California-Los Angeles’ Anderson School of Business and is on track to graduate with a certificate in global business management in next June. She said her studies and recent leadership role in the company have changed the way she and Robert approach discussions of the future with their children.
‘Family Council’
Amy recently resolved to make sure the children had the option to become more involved in the business. She created a “family council” that meets outside of the Miller home once a year. Amy and Robert develop a structured agenda to mindfully discuss their children’s career goals, questions about the business, and whether or not they have interest in keeping ties with Lester Lithograph in the future.
“Amy thought of this, and at first I was really reluctant to make the kids feel like they were being pulled into the family business,” Robert said. “I had wished that the kids would want to be involved, but I didn’t realize up until that point that I hadn’t really done anything to engage their interest. Once we gave them the information, it got them thinking in a way that leaving it unstated wouldn’t have.”
Robert and Amy have been encouraged by the results of the family council meetings and surprised at how involved in Lester Lithograph their children actually want to be.
“I think we were so afraid about them feeling roped in that we just avoided the subject,” Amy said. “But now we have the venue to have important discussions about where they see their talents and abilities fitting into the company and to have some difficult conversations before they actually become a conflict.”
None of the children are poised to take an active role in the company quite yet.
“This industry and this company have been an amazing support to this family,” Robert said. “It gives us an opportunity to talk around the dinner table about business and economics, and the kids have an understanding about it that far exceeds what they could get if they had parents who were just working a job.”
Robert and Amy plan to develop new business opportunities for Lester Lithograph in the future, including a small-printing operation incubator at their Anaheim warehouse and potential in-house graphic design services, and they plan to keep it in the family for years to come.
