Time for today's quiz.
What is a Kinko?A. An endangered fish in the Virgin River.
B. A person whose elevator doesn't go to the top floor.
C. A new dance.
D. None of above.
If you answered "D" you're right.
A Kinko is a string of successful printing outlets started in 1970 in Santa Barbara, Calif., by Paul Orfalea near the University of California at Santa Barbara campus. Orfalea's nickname in college was "Kinko," hence a logical name for his company.
Despite the rather unusual name, Kinko's has grown to 500 stores with some located in every state, including 13 in Utah. Some of the stores are still owned by Orfalea, but seven stores in the Salt Lake Valley are co-owned by Kinko's of Salt Lake Inc., with Gregory L. Clark serving as president.
The success of the printing-shop chain is evident because Clark recently opened a new store at 4844 S. Highland Drive in the Creekside Shopping Center.
Although the store is open for business, the grand opening will be June 15 when customers can get a maximum of 100 copies free.
Kinko's made its first appearance in the Salt Lake Valley in 1982. C.E. Manns Jr. ran the stores until Jan. 1, 1990, when Manns was bought out and Clark took over. Over the years, Orfalea has taken on some partners, sold them a percentage of the ownership and let them develop their own geographical territories, which is the situation with Kinko's of Salt Lake Inc.
Some 60 corporations have been developed through this process while Orfalea maintains the corporate headquarters in Ventura, Calif., on a 25-acre site with athletic facilities and a day care operation for the children of employees. "Kinko's Graphics Corp. is a very people-oriented company," Clark said.
A native of Burbank, Calif., Clark graduated from Sacramento State College in 1973 with a bachelor's degree in sociology and history. He was pursuing a career in commercial aviation and wanted to be a pilot, but because of the 1980 controller strike and airline industry deregulation he changed his mind about that profession at the age of 30.
Clark decided to become an attorney and graduated from the Santa Barbara College of Law in 1984. He was admitted to the California State Bar and worked for David B. Douds & Associates, a law firm that had Kinko's for a client. He handled Kinko's legal matters for two years until he had the opportunity to take control of the stores in Salt Lake Valley.
It didn't take Clark long to start working on opening a seventh store in the valley in an area where Kinko's didn't have a foothold. The newest store contains 2,780 square feet in a building that became vacant four months ago and required inside remodeling, carpet, painting and new cabinets before they could open.
Clark's other stores are located at 200 University St.; 3330 S. 700 East; 3630 W. 3500 South; 1078 E. Fort Union Blvd.; 5654 S. Redwood Road; and even though the downtown stores occupy two separate locations at 230 S. Main and 149 S. Main, they are considered one store, mainly because some services aren't available in both stores.
Orfalea's intent in starting a copy center near a university campus was to take advantage of students needing copies of reports, papers and theses, a much easier way to make copies than typing with several carbons. It soon became apparent there was a market for copies to businesses and non-college types who needed quick and quality service.
Clark said Kinko's caters to businesses, does plenty of work for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and also does small copy jobs for individuals. Among Kinko's 1,600 accounts are law firms that are handled in the copy center's litigation department where papers are copied and confidentiality maintained.
"Our employees are taught to not look at the content of a copy, but concern themselves with the quality of the copy and providing service," Clark said.
In addition to the services in reproducing papers for law firms, Kinko's offers 24-hour service (some stores), specialty printing, free pickup and delivery, binding, self-serve copies, passport photos, oversized copies, Macintosh computers, self-serve typing, stationary, specialty paper, Faxing, color copies, lamination and typesetting.
Can Kinko's handle the big jobs?
Before Clark arrived in Salt Lake City, store employees remember the time a major client needed 1 million copies overnight. By using all of the Kinko's Copy Centers in the Salt Lake Valley, the two in Provo, one in Logan and one in Ogden, 869,000 copies were delivered the next morning and the remainder a few hours later.
Clark said he purchases his copying machines from Kodak and Xerox and he has high-speed machines for quicker and better reproduction. One machine belches out 1,000 copies in eight minutes. Kinko's also has Canon color copiers and Canon laser copiers.
Rick Evans, president of Rick Evans Advertising Co., who has been helping Clark with his public relations, said that when Kinko's first opened in the valley the most often asked question concerned the name, but since that time Kinko's has become synonymous with copy centers.
Because there is so much competition in the commercial copying business these days, Clark said the way to survive is provide aggressive and quality service and do some advertising.
In keeping with the latest environmental emphasis, Kinko's offers recycled paper and Clark wants to plant a tree for every tree's worth of paper used by his company. A lofty goal, but one that he thinks can be accomplished.
With the help of 110 employees in the Salt Lake Valley copy centers and 160 total for the state, Kinko's national operation produced enough copies last year laid end-to-end to reach from Salt Lake City to Baghdad, Iraq. This year, their goal is enough copies to reach around the world.
