In 1982, I began working with O’Keefe Printing. This happened because one of the salesmen for the company was using my creative services and brought Brian O’Keefe, the owner, to meet me one night.
I had a very good understanding of the printing process as I had done all the production for the small community newspaper I had started working at after college and then as Production Manager for The Sunday Express newspaper. After several weeks of negotiation, we reached an agreement whereby I agreed to bring along the clients I retained from my studio, Steve Inks, and work with the company to increase their client list and build sales.
In reality, I was hired to be a Sales Representative, but I was never really a Sales Representative. I was a Creative guy focused on achieving and producing the absolute best printing that existed in Montreal.
That being said, after 40 some odd years, I’ve come to realize that I was always a Sales Guy. I was completed Goal Oriented. I had the drive, charisma, persistence and confidence necessary to become a great salesman. I already knew how to handle rejection and would go back again the next day to the same potential client who may not have let me in the day before…
I had recognized that the volume of work I was handling at my little studio required a team of skills to help me finish the work I was winning, which I could not afford to hire. Brian O’Keefe had a typesetting department and most of the work I was doing, I was creating for my clients, so the ability to layout my work at night, bring in my concepts in the morning and leave them with the typesetters was a real value to me. The company had a team of production people as well as film and printing facilities in the same building and that gave me a lot of freedom.
I was now spending my days actively pursuing new business instead of sitting at a desk doing work which others brought to me. It was the right step for me at this point in my life. I was more drive and persistence than most Creatives I knew and I wanted to make a good living from my work. I also knew that by focusing my strategy on the top Advertising Agencies in Montreal, I had clear advantages over 90% of the sales people in the city;
• I had a degree in Graphic Design and I knew printing better than any of the sales reps at the company, and quite possibly, at any other printing company of the time in Montreal.
• I knew most of the Art Directors in the City as I had either gone to College with them or met them through acquaintances.
In the first year working with the firm, I became the top salesman, landing clients such as IBM Canada, Ogilvy & Mather, J. Walter Thompson, Grey Advertising, Moscovitz & Taylor and many other ad agencies. In 1983, I went up to a meeting at IBM Canada and they handed me the entire launch of the System 36 in Canada, a $450,000.00 project – a gargantuan project at the time.
Over the next 9 years, I would go on to become O’Keefe’s Director of Marketing but I always considered myself their Creative Director.
When I joined the company, sales were a little over $2 Million annually. When I left the company in 1991, sales exceeded $40 Million annually and the company had expanded into Toronto and New York State.
Hiring Steve Roper was the best decision our company ever made. His knowledge of the printing industry and creative marketing abilities helped elevate our company to an entirely different level. Quite frankly, no one at our company even came close to having the natural skill that Steve possessed.
– Bill Maitland. Vice President.
I credit much of that success to the fact that over a 9 year period, I focused on creating an identity for the company, which reflected an exceptionally high quality of workmanship and targeted high end advertising agencies as clients, as they had very high profile clients. This strategy was very successful and created a niche for the company when bidding for projects. O’Keefe became my main client and my employer, but I always felt like they were more a client than an employer. I had a lot of freedom. They gave me a car and a generous expense account.
They also allowed me to hire myself a full time assistant, who I found by wandering through the shop one day. There was a young man who always seemed to be reading at lunchtime so one day I walked up and asked him what he was reading – it was a book on understanding printing techniques and I asked him if he would like to work with me. That young man was named Tom Liszt and 40 years later, we are still close friends and have worked together on many successful projects.
In 1985, I spotted a small ad in the Montreal Gazette looking for an Art Director & Production Manager to help create the very first magazine for the island of St. Martin and thought, ‘That would be a cool project’, so I applied and about three months later, I got a phone call from Guy Rosa saying; ‘When can you get here?”
I said, “Would next week be good?”
I went in to have a talk with Brian O’Keefe and tell him what I wanted to do. He wanted me to stay. I wanted to go and try this so we made an agreement that I would work on Guy Rosa to have them send as much of the printing back to Canada – specifically to O’Keefe, which was fairly easy since Guy was French and I spoke French and O’Keefe was in a French speaking city… it all worked out just fine. So, I packed up my stuff and left for a year, during which time I spent working with virtually every hotel on both sides of the island creating their advertising and brochure work, plus getting the chance to spend a lot of time on the islands of Anguilla and St. Barts.
In 1987, after returning from St. Martin, I was promoted to Director of Marketing at O’Keefe. That same year I landed Henry Birks & Sons as a client, which was the most prestigious client anyone at the time in Montreal could have and this served to cement the reputation regarding the quality O’Keefe Printing strove to achieve and my skill in landing large clients for the company. I remember it was the single largest printing project the company had even produced and was on the printing presses and bindery for two solid weeks. The paper rep that got the contract to provide the paper for the project said it was the single largest sale he had ever made…
I was now managing a sales staff of 16 and I really enjoyed that. I would spend days reaching out to new clients and setting up meetings with them to discuss their requirements, tour our facilities with them then choose a sales rep to handle their accounts and oversee the monthly progress. I liked that part a lot.
That same year, I thought I’d like to have a sailboat instead of the winter ski shack I owned in Morin Heights, so I sold the cottage and purchased a Beneteau First 35. I’d never actually sailed by myself but I hadsailed quite a bit during my year in St. Martin and was smitten by the cavalier type of life the sailors I met led. I also liked the idea of having a place on the water that was mobile so Blue Grace became my summer cottage and my passion.
Over the next four years, I sailed in Lake Champlain, which is nestled between the Adirondack mountains of New York and the beautiful, green rolling hills of Vermont – a sailors dream body of water. I actually ended up finding several clients in Burlington, Vermont who gave me enough printing work to justify my being able to stay on Blue Grace until Monday morning, when I would dock at the Burlington marina and pick up the work from three different ad agencies I was working with before sailing back to Valcour Island, where I would drive back to Montreal to start the work on Tuesday mornings.
In 1990, Studio Magazine wrote a two page article on my work shifting O’Keefe Printing from a small two colour print shop to a multi-national printing company in 9 short years.
In the summer of 1991, I left to go sailing for a year aboard Blue Grace.
Our Corporate Brochure
When we moved into our new building in 1987, I created a corporate brochure which featured a scan of recycled paper and was printed on a recycled gloss stock. Brian O’Keefe bought a five colour press and I was in my glory. I loved what that press could do.
This allowed us to add spot gloss or spot matte varnishes inline to highlight photography. For reading purposes, we also reduced glare by flooding the pages with a matte varnish. What we were really producing was a brochure which featured some of the most advanced printing techniques possible as promotional materials to attract the largest advertising agencies and design studios in Montreal at the time. Most of my time was spent discussing these advanced techniques with our client base. 
The Sales Kit
When we purchased our new five colour press, I wanted to show off our capabilities in a tongue-in-cheek and cocky fashion and came up with the tagline, ‘We’ve Added a Whole New Palette’, which represented the capabilities of having a five colour press and how significant this was in the late 80’s.
The Advertising
The company was very ambitious and we wanted to expand further across Canada. We opened in Toronto (Ontario), Plattsburgh (New York) and Halifax (Nova Scotia) over a three year period.
The Promotional Material
As we grew, I wanted to have the ability to continually develop print marketing materials using the most up-to-date printing techniques and to continue to show off our plant facilities. This beautiful piece featured what at the time was our state-of-the-art Crossfield Scanner.
The O’Keefe Annual Agenda
In 1987, I began creating an annual day-timer agenda with an eight page intro to the company and a 24 – 36 page ‘dictionary’ or Glossary of Terms popularly used in printing. This was distributed to all of our clients and prospects, and was a wildly successful promotion.
Henry Birks & Sons
Landing Henry Birks & Sons as a client was a major milestone. Their Christmas Catalogue was the largest project O’Keefe had ever produced on a sheet fed press, requiring over 40 tons of paper and staying on a single press for over a solid week, 24 hours a day.
Henry Birks & Sons
Henry Birks & Sons went through a series of transition on the late 1980’s and I was tasked with creating historical promotional materials.
Joe Kubert
In 1987, as the Canadian dollar continued to decline, I focused on finding clients in the United States and developed a wonderful relationship with Joe Kubert, Vice President of DC Comics, and a mentor with who I had studied, which lasted for the next 25 years. Joe is best known for his work on the DC Comics characters Sgt. Rock and Hawkman. I am honoured to have called this man my friend.
Studio Magazine Article
In 1990, Studio Magazine published this two page spread on how I was building and growing O’Keefe Printing to not only a national presence but an international printing company. A nice article.
Behind their aggressive promotional plans that will soon push them over $20 Million in annual sales is Steve Roper, their Director of Marketing. He has broadened the awareness of O’Keefe Printing not only across Canada but throughout the Northeastern United States, the Caribbean and more recently, England.
One last thing: In early 1991, I had noticed an ad in Marketing Magazine looking for a Senior Art Director for Foote, Cone and Belding in Hamilton, Bermuda and I decided that I would prepare a resume and apply. I was ready to pursue one of my goals of becoming a Creative Director or try my luck at becoming a Charter Bareboat Captain. I wasn’t going anywhere working at O’Keefe other that right where I was, which was really a good place just not what I wanted any longer. I was preparing for an extended voyage on my sailboat and thought that if the Bermuda gig worked out, I could sail over to Bermuda and work for a two year period then continue along my path.
As of my departure date, nothing came of it and in late summer, I set sail from Lake Champlain and headed off to the Caribbean to try and do some chartering and scuba diving on Blue Grace.
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