Printing Press
Almar Printing
Sam Gromowsky loves to tell the story of how he was kicked out of the cobbler’s trade school at Father Flanagan’s Boys Town. Ending up in the printing school, Sam discovered the trade that would become his life’s career. In 1964, Sam purchased a small duplicator press with money loaned to him by his father-in-law. Setting it up in the basement of the duplex he shared with his new wife, Mary, Sam planted the seeds of what would grow into Almar Printing. In the spring of 1966, the company began to blossom when Sam with no money, a two year old son, and a wife expecting their second son, moved his press to a ten feet by twelve feet room above a bar. Combining the name of his mother, Alice, with the name of his wife, Mary, Sam wrote “Almar Printing” on a shingle and opened the door of his one man operation to the public. In 1969, Sam and Mary moved Almar Printing from above the bar to a nearby first-floor, corner retail space, and then in the summer of 1980, to its present-day location (at 77th Terrace and Wornall Road). Sam and Mary feel that Almar’s success has always been due to the loyalty of his customers; in fact, his first customer still sends printing orders to Almar. Sam stresses to his employees the importance of creating relationships. Thus, every Almar Printing customer is treated with the same helpful and caring attitude, from our largest clients down to the person that walks in wanting one copy. The men and women of today’s Almar Printing show the same pride in their work as Sam and Mary Gromowsky did back in 1964.