Designer of the Year

Innovation Makes Drew & Rogers No. 1.

An in-house, creative graphics department is key for leading in design.

The time was 1944. The place was Newark, N.J. The setting was an old war-time register forms company where two innovative employees named Aubrey Drew and Fred Rogers were inspired to start their own forms brokerage business. With $250 be-tween them, the duo took a chance and, in the tradition of Abbott & Costello and other great teams of their time, named the new-found company Drew & Rogers.

"This was before there was such a thing as a broker business," said Carl Marino, vice president. "From the very beginning Drew & Rogers was an innovative enterprise."

This may be exactly why the company is a leader in print design today. The staff's successful foresight, coupled with their passion and commitment to design—a paramount element in the current marketplace—are two additional reasons.

"Solving problems customers present to us and piecing them together in time frames that seem impossible is one of the passions I have for this line of work," said President Tom Rogers. "Many of us share that feeling, and we tend to compete with each other for better solutions."

Rogers, the youngest son of Fred Rogers, worked for a couple of manufacturers before coming on board at Drew & Rogers in 1985. In 1992 he was named president and CEO, and by 1996 bought out the graphics art business of the company's current art director, Michael Monteleone.

The purchase was a direct result of the company's vision of where the forms industry was headed.

"Our company saw the future of the forms business about 10 years ago and we knew we needed to pursue alternative products," said Marino. "That's when we started getting into commercial printing, ad specialties and creative packaging design in a big way." Today about 70 percent of Drew & Rogers' business is related to commercial printing, while only 30 percent is associated with traditional forms.