Celebrating Quad/Graphics' milestones.

1971

• Incorporate on July 13. Launch operations from a 20,000-square-foot abandoned warehouse in Pewaukee, Wisconsin, with a Baker Perkins "America IV" press and a borrowed saddle stitcher.
• Welcome Investor magazine as our first client.

1973

• Employ 25 people. Annual sales top $2.8 million.
• Receive printing contracts for several four-color newsstand magazines, including Fishing Facts.
• Found our first division, Duplainville Transport (now part of Quad/Transportation Services).

1974

• Purchase our first saddle stitcher.
• Hire our first customer service representative.
• Implement innovative three-day work week, providing four 12-hour shifts for round-the-clock operations seven days a week.

1975

• Install the M-1, Quad/Graphics' first web offset press.
• Open sales offices in New York City and Los Angeles.
• Establish an Employee Stock Ownership Plan so that all employees can be owners of the company.

1976

• Employ 100 people and record annual sales of nearly $7 million.
• Bring platemaking in-house.

1977

• Construct first addition to our Pewaukee plant.
• Print our first work for Newsweek, a four-page form. Later in the year, we are tapped to print a Newsweek cover.

1978

• Initiate custom of flying the flags of our clients.
• Begin binding Newsweek in October.

1979

• Launch in-house prepress services with the founding of Enterprise Graphics, now known as Quad/Imaging.
• Found QuadTech, our research and development division.

1980

• Employ 390 people. Annual sales top $21 million.
• Hold first CAMP/Quad (Catalog and Magazine Production) for clients.

1981

• Honor Harry R. "Senior" Quadracci, chairman of the board of Quad/Graphics, for 50 years in the printing industry.
• Recognize founder and president Harry V. "Larry" Quadracci for 20 years in the printing industry.
• Open Boston sales office.

1982

• Break ground for our second plant in Sussex, Wisconsin.
• Inaugurate Finishing ink-jet system for addressing pieces in-line.

1983

• Acquire regional title Milwaukee Magazine.
• Found Chemical Research\Technology (CR\T), our ink manufacturing subsidiary.
• Introduce Quad/Education, our in-house training division.

1984

• Employ more than 1,000 people.
• Annual sales approximate $69 million.
• Break ground for our third plant in Saratoga Springs, New York.
  It officially opens in 1985.
• Purchase vacated cannery to house gravure operations in Lomira, Wisconsin.
• Named one of The 100 Best Companies to Work for in America.

1985

• Open first Quad/Care child-care center in elementary school near our Sussex, Wisconsin, plant.
• Found QuadCreative, our in-house design group.

1986

• Celebrate our entry into gravure printing with the inauguration of the G-1 gravure press in Lomira.
• Unveil our first Multi-Mailer, a co-mailer that combines multiple titles into a single mailstream to create postal presort discounts for our clients.
• Harry V. “Larry” Quadracci is inducted into the Printing Industry Hall of Fame.

1987

• Begin production of People in Saratoga Springs which establishes us as the world's largest printer of newsweekly magazines.
• Start CB Graphics, our sheetfed press operation.

1988

• Establish QuadTech Europe in Weesp, the Netherlands.
• Break ground for the High Tech Center, the new world headquarters for QuadTech.
• Operate 29 web offset presses, 4 gravure presses, 23 saddle stitchers and 7 perfect binders.

1989

• Acquire W.R. Bean & Son's Thomaston, Georgia, printing facility.
• Introduce in-house list management services.
• Open sales offices in Chicago and Minneapolis.

1990

• Break ground for our Hartford, Wisconsin, plant. It officially opens in 1992.
• Debut QuadPhoto division.
• Acquire Orbis Graphic Arts in Anaheim, California, providing Quad/Graphics with a West Coast imaging site.
• Open first onsite medical clinic in the Pewaukee plant.
• Welcome first onsite Quad/Care child-care center within the Lomira, Wisconsin, plant.

1991

• Introduce Gruff, our environmental spokesgoat.
• Operate 43 web offset presses, 5 gravure presses, 38 saddle stitchers and 11 perfect binders.
• Employ more than 5,000 people. Annual sales are $509 million.
• Open onsite Quad/Care child-care center in Sussex, Wisconsin

1992

• Named one of the 100 best companies for working mothers by
  Working Mother magazine.
• Launch QuadDirect, our direct-mail marketing division, and Quad/Dimensional Imaging, our three-dimensional printing group.

1993

• Break ground for Quad/Graphics' revolutionary automated storage and retrieval system at our Sussex, Wisconsin, plant.
• Become the first North American printer to purchase a high-speed Ferag drum stitcher.
• Open sales offices in Detroit and Seattle.
• Establish QuadTech Asia-Pacific with offices in Singapore and Japan.

1994

• Complete first live computer-to-plate run for a client.
• Offer digital photography services through QuadPhoto.
• Begin construction on our plant in The Rock, Georgia. It officially opens
  in 1995.
• Transform blighted urban location into state-of-the-art print-production facility in West Allis, Wisconsin.
• Install our first 48-page offset press.
• Open third onsite child-care center adjacent to our Pewaukee, Wisconsin, facility.

1995

• Break ground for megaplant in Martinsburg, West Virginia.
• Purchase a 276,350-square-foot building in New Berlin, Wisconsin, for book binding operations. The building was constructed and run by the Quadraccis for the W.A. Krueger Company before Quad/Graphics' founding in 1971.
• Employ 8,500 people. Annual sales top $1 billion.

1996

• Purchase a substantial interest in Anselmo L. Morvillo S.A. in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
• Open our second onsite healthcare clinic in West Allis, Wisconsin.
• Begin construction on Lithostone Meadow, affordable employee housing adjacent to our Lomira, Wisconsin, plant.

1997

• Purchase a substantial interest in Plural Editoria e Grafica, the commercial-printing arm of Sao Paolo, Brazil-based Folha Group.
• Debut Parcel Direct, our ground-residential parcel delivery service for large-volume shippers.
• Produce our first-ever nationally distributed case-bound title,
  National Garden Book, for client Sunset Publishing.
• Celebrate Harry V. "Larry" Quadracci's success as he's named Wisconsin's Master Entrepreneur of the Year.
• Open third onsite healthcare clinic in Lomira, Wisconsin.
• Employ more than 10,000 people. Annual sales are in excess of
  $1.2 billion.

1998

• Purchase equity stake in Winkowski, the printing arm of Proszynski I S-ka in Poland.
• QuadTech premiers the revolutionary closed-loop Color Control System (CCS).
• Eradicate conventional imaging and offer digital imaging and computer-to-plate services exclusively.
• Open the Quad/Saratoga Family Care Center near our upstate New York plant.
• Celebrate the induction of Harry R. “Senior” Quadracci into the Printing Impressions/Rochester Institute of Technology Hall of Fame.

1999

• Start up all-new West Virginia parcel sortation center (adjacent to our printing plant).
• Transform Thomaston, Georgia, printing facility into a Parcel Direct parcel expediting center.
• Launch equipment.qg.com for the online sale of prepress, press and finishing equipment.
• Mourn the loss of Harry R. “Senior” Quadracci, Father of Web Offset Printing, who died on September 14 at age 85.

2000
 

• Purchase Impoze Systems, developer of the industry standard page-planning software.
• Introduce our Smartools Web site at www.QG.com/smartools where clients can access real-time production information 24/7.
• Operate 22 print-production and imaging facilities on three continents.
• Employ 11,000 people worldwide. Sales approximate $1.8 billion.

2001
 

• Announce plans to build a web offset and gravure megaplant in
  Oklahoma City.
• The Wall Street Journal features our company and our penchant for growing during economic downturns.
• Build an onsite medical clinic in Saratoga Springs plant.
• Announce that our Oklahoma City plant will debut with the industry's newest, most highly automated gravure printing equipment.
  

2002
 

• Mourn the loss of Harry V. Quadracci, Quad/Graphics' founder, who died on July 29 at age 66.
• Welcome company co-founder Thomas Quadracci as Quad/Graphics' President & CEO.
• Partner with Waukesha County (Wis.) Technical College to create the
  Harry V. Quadracci Printing and Graphics Center.
• Develop and install the industry's first triple former folder on a gravure press in Martinsburg.
• Break ground on our eighth printing plant in Oklahoma City.
• Automate calculations of ad percentages and piece weights with Impoze - the first and only PAGE-certified publication and print-planning software.
• Begin production on National Geographic in November.
• Introduce three Regional Vice Presidents of Sales: Renee Lekan, Vice President of East Coast Sales; Tim Ohnmacht, Vice President of Midwest Sales; and Bob Wachtendonk, Vice President of West Coast Sales.

2003

• Embark on Lean Enterprise, a perpetual improvement campaign designed to eliminate waste or “muda,” in both administrative and production areas.
• Welcome Architectural Digest back after a seven-year absence.
• Purchase two new double-web Heidelberg 3000/32 presses. Also known as 64-page presses, the presses are capable of printing up to 64 pages per impression, including four unique 16-page signatures.
• Celebrate the grand opening of our Oklahoma City plant, the company’s first plant west of the Mississippi River.
• Meet growing market demand in the San Francisco Bay Area by opening our 16th Imaging site there.
  

2004

• Appear in GUTS! Companies That Blow the Doors Off Business-as-Usual,
  a new book by best-selling authors Kevin and Jackie Freiberg featuring companies that have bucked traditional management styles and forged their own path to extraordinary success.
• Begin work on BusinessWeek, the world’s best-selling business publication.
• Quad/Graphics President & CEO Tom Quadracci is named one of the Gravure Association of America’s Persons of the Year for 2004.
• Announce $200 million in equipment purchases at Drupa, the quadrenniel graphic arts trade show.
• Sell subsidiary Parcel Direct to FedEx.
• Start up gravure operations in Oklahoma City just one month shy of the plant's first anniversary.
• Bestow our first-ever Supplier of the Year Awards to 15 vendor-partners for their outstanding service.

2005

• Joel Quadracci, the son of Founder Harry V. Quadracci, takes over as President & Chief Operating Officer while Tom Quadracci transitions to Chairman & Chief Executive Officer.
• Proceed with a major retooling of our web offset platform, installing a fleet of 64-page presses company wide.
• Join with national partners to launch the ReMix (Recycling Magazines is Excellent) campaign in metropolitan Milwaukee.
• Begin taking steps to improve safety awareness company wide through SAFE (Safe Accountability For Employees), a safety and reward program for production employees.
• Earn distinction as Newsweek’s Printer of the Year for the 20th consecutive year.
• Construct High Density Sequencing Systems (HDSSs) at our plants in Lomira and Sussex for work in process.
• Are recognized by the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine (ACOEM) with a Corporate Health Achievement Award. The award recognizes our state-of-the-art onsite medical and fitness facilities, innovative prevention programs for employees and our demonstrated commitment to environmental health.
• Introduce QuadSystems, a new business unit that will focus on developing, marketing and supporting our industry-leading publication management systems Impoze, AdSync, Regional Ad Planning System (R.A.P.S.) and PlanSystem3.
• Renew our long-standing business relationship with publisher Time Inc. with a new $1.1 billion agreement for the continued production of 22 titles through yearend 2013.

2006

• Are named to FORTUNE's "100 Best Companies to Work For" list, an annual ranking the magazine compiles to recognize the best employers in the nation.
• Multi-bind two separately owned, major newsweeklies — InformationWeek and U.S. News & World Report — in an industry first.
• Become the first printer to use the new GRACoL 7 printing specification on one of our presses.
• Pledge $1 million toward the building of a new Harry V. Quadracci Printing Education and Technology Center at Waukesha County (Wis.) Technical College (WCTC).
• Welcome Joel Quadracci as President & CEO on July 1 and prepare for the yearend retirement of Chairman Tom Quadracci.
• Celebrate the 35th anniversary of our company's founding on July 13.
• Purchase a majority interest in Openfirst, a direct mail communications provider based in Milwaukee.
• Expand our geographic capabilities to the West Coast by acquiring Craftsman Press West, a privately held commercial printer with a single facility in Reno, Nev.
• Introduce QuadData Solutions, which formally expands the focus of our QuadData Services division to meet clients' increasing need for data-driven marketing.
• Earn an Environmental Excellence Award from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) SmartWay Transport Partnership.

2007

• Are named to FORTUNE's "100 Best Companies to Work For" list for a second year running.
• Our Martinsburg plant is named Large Business of the Year by the Martinsburg and Berkeley County (W.Va) Chamber of Commerce.
• Welcome cataloger L.L.Bean back to Quad under a multi-year deal in which we will become the exclusive printer and prepress provider for its catalogs beginning January 2008.
• Herald the opening of the Harry V. Quadracci Printing Education and Technology Center on the campus of Waukesha County (Wis.) Technical College. The center is intended to be a national hub for technical education and technological innovation in printing and graphic arts where printers and industry vendors can showcase technology and gather for special events.