Northwest Aerospace News June | July 2019 Issue No. 9 | Page 32

W
hat determines the value
of a business? Is it the physical
infrastructure, the knowledge
and skill of its employees, or
the intellectual property that it
holds? For Doug Stewart, the
president of Color Craft, Inc.,
those are all important — but he
values the relationship between
a company and its customers
more than everything else.
Stewart is in a position to know;
he has made a career out of
identifying underperforming
businesses and taking them to
new heights, and Color Craft
is his latest project. Based
in Tukwila, Washington, the
company was in deteriorating
financial condition when he
acquired it in 2011. Today,
Color Craft employs 25
people and is growing at a
22 percent annual rate, with
its primary customers in
the aerospace business. The
company manufactures a
wide range of products, and
provides specialized printing
on everything from the cockpit,
lavatory and seats of an aircraft
to the large-scale exterior
graphics seen regularly on
airplanes around the world.
Stewart recently acquired
Eclipse Screen Printing, based
in Spokane — a supplier
of similar products as well
as membrane switches and
overlays for the industrial
supply chain. This new
acquisition supports his core
business philosophy: that
quality relationships are the key
to success.
32
Learning to Fly
“Color Craft started in 1949, doing traditional screen printing for signs and
banners,” Stewart explained. “Over the years, they changed ownership several
times, and at some point during the 1980s, they were asked to do a small project
for Boeing.”
Up to that point, the company had never done any business related to aerospace
manufacturing, but it continued to do occasional exterior graphics for Boeing.
Color Craft was subsequently acquired by a larger printing conglomerate, which
viewed the company as its point of entry into the aviation industry.
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