So long as companies and organizations want items like customized ball caps, t-shirts, sweaters, golf shirts, hockey jerseys, pens, calculators, rulers and golf balls, there will always be work for Greg Neethling.
As owner of Title Wave, a North Bay textile and screen printing operation, Neethling is forecasting a solid year ahead with an estimated tidy profit of $50,000, much of which he intends to reinvest back into his modest two-person North Bay company.
"The sky's the limit and it all depends on how far we want to take it," says Neethling, 28, a Canadore College graduate of the graphic arts program.
Neethling began working for his brother Ed about four years ago before inheriting the business in 2001.
"I decided to take it on and give it a shot."
Neethling, who has been involved in the craft for seven years, runs a manual press in his shop that contains a showroom of all their printed and embroidered specialty items.
He works hand-in-hand with a sister company, Image Works, which is contracted to do the custom embroidery work.
The commitment to putting out a high-quality, durable product and spending some feverish hours in the shop is starting to pay off.
"We're swamped right now. We're growing and doubling our business from last year."
Business has grown mainly through word of mouth and customer referrals, he says. Neethling has focused his wholesale business on hockey and golf tournaments and community events to build publicity.
Along the way, he has steadily picked up orders supplying customized apparel for local Dragonboat Festival teams and an ultimate Frisbee league.
He has also developed a healthy Rolodex of long-time clients, customizing golf shirts, hockey sweaters and apparel for clients such as Telespectrum,
Partners Billiards and Bowlings, as well as the team jerseys for North Bay's football Bulldogs and the Skyhawks junior hockey team.
In the years ahead, Neethling wants to tap into the lucrative college-university market and approach some large forestry and mining companies.
"We want to push into bigger contracts doing thousands of shirts at a time and running a bigger automatic press," Neethling says.
With a developing network of contacts outside of North Bay, he is now working on finalizing a large order this summer with an Alberta-based college.
"North Bay is a great community, but if we want to expand we have to look outside (of the community)..and we want to expand as far as we can."
