Our
History
Stouse Sign Service was founded by Merle Stouse
in the early 1950’s and was located at 31st
& Main in Kansas City, MO. Stouse specialized
in sign painting, billboards, road signs, store
signs, and restaurant signage.
Bary
Marquardt purchased Stouse Sign Service in 1977
when Merle Stouse retired. Stouse’s small
staff of eight continued to create and produce
signs including posters and blackboards for Houlihan’s,
Annie’s Sante Fe, The Bristol, and several
other restaurants. The product line was also expanded
to include bumper stickers. In 1979 Stouse produced
its first catalog, a smaller, more primitive version
of today’s full-line catalog.
In 1980 the company became Stouse, Inc and relocated
to an 18,000 square foot building on Roanoke Road
in Kansas City, MO. It was also at this time that
William Lewis joined Stouse’s team of 25
employees as a partner. By April of 1988 the company
had outgrown the Roanoke facility. To accommodate
the growth and more than sixty employees a new
37,000 square foot building went up in Industrial
Airport, Kansas (known today as New Century Air
center). Stouse, Inc. continued to grow over the
next couple of years and in 1992 an additional
40,000 square feet of plant space was added to
allow for more production room. At that time,
the employee base was 170 people.
In December of 1994 the facility would again be
expanded with plans being drawn up to add 85,000
square feet of plant and office space on 9.5 acres
of land in the newly named New Century Air Center.
With the plans to expand the facility, several
screen-printed products and flexographic printed
embossed, foil stamped and roll labels were added
to the product line. The addition of these products
allowed Stouse to become a more complete supplier
for its broad distributor base that reaches nearly
26,000 customers in the United States, Canada,
and Mexico. In July of 1996, 300 employees witnessed
the beginning of the 85,000 square feet addition
that would more than double the current building.
The project was completed in December of 1997
and included much needed warehouse space, bigger
file rooms, more meeting and conference areas,
and more office area for accounting, pricing,
and customer service. |
