User:Theresa Lowry/sandbox

Larry Hunt

Larry Hunt (born October 16, 1941) is a long time American Business owner. After retiring from full time business ownership he became involved in consulting several hours a week with a family business. Larry uses the management skills that he gained through almost 40 years of business ownership to help this company grow.

Over the last 4 years, he has been assisting his daughter, Theresa, and her husband, James, in running a small business named ECOS Environmental & Disaster Restoration ("ECOS"), headquartered in Glenwood Springs, Colorado. Hunt has helped them focus on their company's financials with an emphasis on managing cash flow, increasing revenue, and reducing unnecessary spending. Further, he has helped them develop reports to improve the profitability of this business. Most recently, his primary focus has been on their website www.ecosenvironmental.com with the goal of increasing organic traffic.

Early life and education

Hunt was born in Elizabeth, New Jersey. He graduated from Middletown Township High School in Middletown, New Jersey.

He earned a Bachelor of Science (B.S.) in Accounting from Rutgers University in 1966 and his Master of Business Administration (MBA) from Pacific Lutheran University in 1972.

Except for the first year of undergraduate school, Hunt earned these degrees while going to school at night and working during the day in order to earn the money to pay for school.

Career

After graduation, Hunt was hired by the construction company that had employed him while he was attending college. He was promoted several times during the next seven years in various management positions. By 1973, he saw limited opportunity for advancement and decided to try his hand at being an Entrepreneur.

He started a Quick Printing business in 1973 and built it from 1 to 10 employees over the next 5 years. He then sold this successful business to his store manager and moved with his wife and children to the Clearwater area of Florida.

In 1979, he started his first Quick Printing shop in Florida. With this shop going very well, he took one of the supervisors from this first shop and opened a second store in 1985. In 1986, he repeated the process and opened a third store.

In 1991, he sold these three stores to the managers and moved on to the next phase of his business career. At the time of sale, there were about 21 employees.

In July 1991 and January 1992, Hunt started two business newsletters for printers to help them in purchasing equipment and in making good profits with that equipment. These two newsletters were: Larry Hunt’s Color Copy News and Larry Hunt’s High Speed Copy News.

He ran these newsletters for 18 years and sold this successful business in January 2010. These newsletters are still being run by the new owner and have been helping printers for about 27 years.

Personal life

On August 27, 1966, Larry married Maureen Donovan, who had emigrated from Ireland to the United States in 1960. Maureen became a U.S. citizen in 1966. They recently celebrated their 52nd. Wedding Anniversary.

Their first daughter Ann was born in 1967. Cathy was born in 1968 and their third daughter Theresa was born in 1971.

They have a total of 12 grandchildren, ranging in age from 6 to 24.

Printing association involvement

Shortly after he started his first print shop in 1973, the Quick Printing Industry started a National Association of Quick Printers (NAQP). This was formed in 1975. Hunt joined immediately and got involved with other printers around the country.

He felt strongly that involvement with owners in the same industry could be a strong factor in his business success. NAQP had its first National Convention in 1977 in Denver, CO and Hunt was there. From then on, he never missed a National Convention until he sold the businesses in 1991. He saw this 3 day event as the absolute highlight of the year for his business success.

As with many industries, some participants in the field become active in providing information for the group as a whole. Hunt was one of those people.

By 1979, he had volunteered to be on a panel to provide information for the attendees. By 1980, he started providing business seminars at these conventions and was on the program almost every year from 1980 to 1991.

Including giving seminars at the conventions, Hunt was an industry speaker more than 100 times in locations around the U.S. and in many other parts of the world including Canada, England and Australia.

In addition to providing Industry seminars, Hunt wanted to share some of his business success in the form of books for printers. He wrote a total of 5 books from 1982 to 2007. Titles of these books are:

How Much Is Your Printing Business Worth?

Keys to Successful Quick Printing

Pricing for Profit

Quick Printing Productivity, Improve It or Else

Print Shop For Sale (co-authored with John Stewart)

During the time that Hunt was giving seminars and writing industry books, he was often asked by fellow printers to help them with personal issues in their business. This led to a series of personal consulting assignments where Hunt went to their print shop and worked to get them back on a profitable path. He did more than 50 of these consulting assignments over a 15 year period.

In 1981, Hunt joined the Board of Directors of NAQP and in 1983-84 he became National Chairman of this association of more than 4,000 members. In 1984, he was honored to be named the National Quick Printer of the Year.

Volunteer work

In the 1980s and 1990s, Hunt spent many hours volunteering his services to help in the success of NAQP and the printing members of this association.

After retiring, he joined SCORE, which is a National volunteer organization dedicated to helping businesses get started and improve their success. He worked with SCORE for over 5 years.

In addition to providing free consulting services to businesses at SCORE, he also gave more than 30 seminars for these small business Entrepreneurs.