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By Roy V. Flesh II, CEO
The Flesh Company first opened its doors for business in 1913. Our company's history is one of which I am extremely proud, and I'd like to share this fascinating story with you.
A Home Run
During the summer of 1913, my grandfather and namesake, Roy V. Flesh (known as R.V. to his many friends), closed a rather large sale. R.V. was a salesman by trade, and an excellent one. To reward himself for closing the sale, he took the afternoon off and attended a Cardinal baseball game. The next day, when R.V.'s boss asked him where he had been the previous day, R.V. told him he had gone to a baseball game. "Well I wish you hadn't done that," his boss said. "We could have used you around here." R.V. was disappointed by the lack of gratitude his boss displayed, and shortly thereafter, he decided to leave his sales position and go into business for himself. He named his new sole proprietorship The Flesh Company.
A Tradition Begins
From the beginning, my grandfather established three principles that have guided The Flesh Company to a long history of success:
Stay on the cutting edge of new technologies.
Always provide customers with the best service our industry has to offer.
Stand behind every order we produce, thereby providing customers with total peace of mind.
R.V. was a visionary, and his three principles guided him throughout his career. Soon, his young company grew into a thriving business. The Flesh Company blossomed in the 1920s and continued to do well even during the Great Depression years of the 1930s. R.V. ran the company through World War II. As the war concluded, The Flesh Company was poised for a new chapter in its history.
Leading The Industry
The year 1946 was a pivotal one for our company. First, my father, Royal S. "Scud" Flesh joined the company. Scud had delayed his business career to serve in the Army during World War II. With the war over, Dad was able to join the company. Also that year, we teamed up with eight other companies to form the National Business Forms Association, which evolved to become the Document Management Industries Association (DMIA), and is now called the Print Services and Distribution Association (PSDA). As a charter member of PSDA, The Flesh Company has attended every Annual Meeting since the association was founded. In keeping with our cooperative dedication to excellence in the industry, today we are also active members of the Strategic Print Alliance, another powerful leader in the printing industry. Both my grandfather and father believed that when manufacturers and distributors share their knowledge and expertise, each becomes stronger. As a result, our entire industry benefits. Time has shown that their vision was correct.
A New Era In Manufacturing
During the 1960s, my father realized that computers were going to revolutionize business. He could see that with the growth of computers, continuous forms were going to become a huge part of our industry. That's why he made a key decision: The Flesh Company would specialize in the production of custom continuous forms and checks. At the same time, Scud and longtime business partner Bill Lawrence saw the growing need for a strong manufacturer of unit set forms. In 1968, they and two additional partners established IMI Business Forms. Bill is one of the most knowledgeable manufacturing experts in our industry. As chief administrative officer of IMI for many years, he played a key role in the growth of the unit set segment of our business.
Preparing for the 21st Century
In 1998, The Flesh Company and IMI Business Forms consolidated their sales and manufacturing operations at our facility in Parsons, KS. The move was praised by customers across the country. We increased our full color print capability and added digital variable imaging driving our growth into bar coding applications such as chain of custody documents where image quality and accuracy is critical.
In 2008 we added flexographic print capacities for producing labels, cards and tags as well as a full, state of the art digital print shop in St. Louis. This facility, like her sister in Parsons, is supported by a strong customer and production team. Driven by our client’s need for direct mail with variable data we invested in software to allow us to provide variable data, versioned graphics as well as personalized URL’s (Purl) in full color. The investment was also used to enter the digital book market.
Another new division was implemented for scanning and data capture services so customers who are helping their clients move toward a paperless environment would be able to offer leading edge technology solutions. This service includes a secure destruction of the scanned documents which makes The Flesh Company literally a “cradle to grave” supplier for information documents.