Olympus Flag & Banner, a Milwaukee-based printer of billboards and signage, and manufacturer of specialty products such as flags, mascot costumes, and point of purchase displays, has changed its name to Olympus Group.
The name change was made to better reflect the company’s growing capabilities in recent years. In 2008, Olympus acquired Holzhauer Graphics, ACS Marketing and Visual Marketing – all three of those companies have been combined into Olympus’ operations.
The company will continue to be headquartered in Milwaukee, where it operates a 65,000 square foot facility. It also has operations in Michigan, Oklahoma and Florida.
“Some of the acquisitions we have done recently have pushed our product mix where flags and banners don’t correctly represent who we are,” said Brian Adam, president of the company. “We needed a name that could better represent the product mix. We’re a company that focuses on building our customers’ brands, whether it’s in mascots, billboards, fleet graphics, in-store signage or point of purchase.”
Olympus recently completed a 10,000 square foot addition to its Milwaukee facility, which Adam believes will be fully operational by the end of the week. The expansion, which the company will fill with about $600,000 worth of new printing equipment, is needed because of Olympus’ continued growth.
“2010 for us was our strongest year in seven or eight years,” Adam said. “With our acquisitions, the synergies were realized in 2010. The last nine months of 2010 were our strongest quarters since 2001.”
Olympus has about 100 employees – it added four new workers on Jan. 1, and Adams believes it will hire another five to 10 by the end of the year.
Olympus had 25 percent growth last year in its core business areas. Its wide-format printing work with companies such as Kohl’s, Simmons and Disney helped drive that growth, Adam said.
The company believes it will continue its growth this year.
“The addition will better allow us to better service our customers and increase growth, have better turn times and better capacity,” Adam said. “We’re looking forward to a strong 2011 and (setting) some new sales records.”
