by Gary Powell

My goal is to drop more words than names on this weblog to try to explain, and even understand myself, the components of success. This success story should be helpful to us as artistan entrepreneurs. However, over the past six months I’ve been noticing my preference for the word achievement over the word success and the word aspiration over dream. In any other city, the story below might be called, “The Key to Success”. In Austin we would probably call it “The Wholeness of Achievement”.

Achievement and aspiration have context while success can be JPL….Just Plain Lucky. In other words, all success is not created equal.

Meet Teri McCarthy, owner of McCarthy Print in Austin, Texas. How did this five-foot-something blonde-tornado build this successful Austin printing business from scratch? Off the top of my head: she is competent, creative, industrious, personal, consistent and ethical. And now Teri has a newcomer to her printing business. It is a Heidelberg 5 Color Perfector (SM 74-5-P) capable of printing on paper 29.13 inches wide.

To put this in musical terms: outside of KLRU-TV, the home of Austin City Limits, I don’t know of a single recording studio in Austin whose total expenditure on gear is equal to the cost of this ONE printing press…… and this is her second one!

So, how did she do this? This I know: Heidelberg 5-color presses don’t come in a cereal box, from the U.S. Government or from getting lucky. They are, however, freighted in….. cash-on-delivery to people and businesses who have a long history of affecting the economy in a positive way. One trusted method of affecting the economy is to create and maintain professional relationships using that list of Teri’s attributes above.

This machine sits atop an isolated slab of layered concrete six feet deep. The slab alone could have built many a musician’s dream studio.

A successful business cannot be understood by inflating one person’s contribution to mythic proportions, so here’s one simple true story. When I began teaching at the University of Texas in 1985, I wanted more than the typical one sheet black and white printed programs for our shows. Teri adopted me and my singing group while she was working for Dividend Printing creating color programs for us with individual photos and bios of every singer. Broadway didn’t have programs this nice and still doesn’t. This effort happened while she was “just” an employee and “just” working for a client, me, who was paying next to nothing.

What’s to learn from this story? Talent and persistence win and aspiring people find each other. Once found, they tend to be loyal and supportive networkers. So now I’m writing about Teri McCarthy because of her loyalty to me, her achievements, her company’s beautiful product and……. she’s my friend.

And, I’m seeing some 29 inch wide business cards in my future!

To contact McCarthy Print
E-mail or Call James Adame at 512.484.0785

Also, my special thanks to Tim Koderl, Michael Mack and all the staff at McCarthy Print for the great work they have done for me and my projects.