Muscling Forward

Under Galloway's leadership, Bema has cultivated a strong vertical integration of its operations—which now include a digital prepress technology center, plus 10-color flexographic printing, adhesive lamination, slitting, bag-making, and pouch-making capabilities—all housed at its Elmhurst facility. Galloway believes this capabilities structure is a notable competitive differentiator for the smaller, 48-employee firm, and Bema's customer base would appear to agree; Bema's small-company operations philosophy and large-company capabilities blueprint has proved a powerful combination, helping the firm triple sales in the past four years and cement a presence in the food, pet, and industrial markets.