Print shop owners confident in Bremerton

Why would the owners of a successful business — more than a decade in the same location — suddenly move from bustling East Bremerton to depressed downtown Bremerton?

Most businesses go the other way.

“I have an emerging, undeniable faith that Bremerton has got a more viable future,” said Shane Foraker, co-owner with wife, Janet, of the PIP Printing franchise established in 1990 just 50 feet outside city limits on Riddell Road. Early this month they moved it — kit, caboodle and copiers — to 711 Pacific Avenue, nearly across the street from the U.S. Post Office.

They re-opened the first week of February. Actually, the move wasn’t so sudden.

Foraker said he’d been thinking about it for years. When his lease recently came up for renewal, “I thought, ‘I could stay here (at Redwood Plaza), but my primary customers — business print buyers — are in Bremerton ... and I wanted to help perpetuate Bremerton’s growth.

“Bremerton has the chance to come out of the ashes,” Foraker said.

His site at 711 Pacific is the former site of the old Dickson Fletcher Printing shop. PIP went from 1,980 square feet at its old location to 2,700 square feet. PIP serves not only Bremerton businesses and private citizens but also customers from Silverdale and Port Orchard. They have clients in Seattle, Tacoma and Port Townsend, he said.

“We even had (a customer) in Norway for a while. But our dominant interest is in meeting the daily needs of the average business print buyer within a 15-mile radius” in Bremerton, he said.

PIP offers both offset printing as well as state-of-the-art digital; advertising specialties, large-format laminating, blueprint copying, Web design, bindery and bulk-mail processing. The business employs five full-time workers and two part-timers.

“We’ve rented parking next to the store for our employees so as not to add to the parking shuffle in Bremerton,” he added.

He said PIP franchises are wholly owned and were once called Postal Instant Press. There are 500 worldwide.

Janet Foraker is active in the Soroptimists. Shane Foraker is currently president of the Rotary Club of East Bremerton and is the director of the Performing Arts Foundation of the Bremerton Community Concerts Association.

Finally, Foraker said he was greatly helped in his move by city officials.

“I’d like to extend my gratitude to the employees of Bremerton who did everything they could to facilitate our move,” he said. “The planning department, city clerk, fire department and office of the mayor.”

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