Sixty Years Strong

Rex 3 founder, Julius Miller, doesn’t let age stand in his way. At 94 years old, he still goes into the office every day.

Most of us would consider ourselves lucky to hold the same job for 30 or 40 years, but Julius Miller, founder of Sunrise, Florida-based Rex 3, is approaching six decades with the company. At 94 years old, Miller says that it is his passion for Rex 3, knowledge of the industry and his flair for sales that have kept him loyal to the family-run company he has led since the 1950s.

Julius Miller’s son Steve took over as CEO in 1963 — a position he still holds today — but many of the Millers’ friends and family have been with the company for more than 25 years. Which, as the elder Miller says, is the reason the company has been able to survive in such a dynamic industry, and it is one of the things that makes him the most proud.

But as any printer can attest to, passion, loyalty and a knowledge of the printing industry aren’t always enough to keep a business afloat; encouraging an evolutionary environment is key.

“It’s our ability to adapt to change,” says Howard Shusterman, chief operating officer of Rex 3, and Julius Miller’s nephew.

And change it has. Rex 3 (formerly Rex Engraving) began as an engraving company before moving into color separation to meet customer demand. The company started by creating wet proofs for clients, but when it realized there was enough downtime to generate more revenue from presswork, it began to make its way into commercial printing.

However, it wasn’t long before desktop publishing broke onto the scene and began to disrupt the niche many printers had carved out for themselves. By the 1980s, Julius Miller and his team knew that they needed to expand offerings or be pushed out by the rise of the everyday printer. Desktop publishing allowed anyone with a desktop scanner, the right design programs and a printer to create their own color separations.

That was when Rex 3 started to become a full-service printing company. The company added warehousing, fulfillment distribution, mailing, digital asset management and expanded its packaging capabilities — today the business is comprised of approximately 32 percent commercial printing and 30 percent packaging, with the remainder going to a variety of other services.

As the industry continued to evolve throughout the 1990s and into the 2000s, Rex 3 began to hire software developers to offer its clients a workflow efficiency solution.

“We hired software developers to improve workflow efficiencies for existing customers,” Shusterman explains. “If we did not do what we did, we would probably not be in business today. We were very aggressive in trying to capitalize on developing software.”

In 2009, one of the biggest opportunities came from Topps, the iconic sports trading card company. The company was still producing its trading cards in a traditional way — with an operator controlling and overseeing every step of the workflow on the press — so Rex 3 developed software to automate the production of Topps’ cards to increase efficiency.

Julius Miller looks over a proof of sports trading cards.

Around the same time, Rex 3 also entered into an agreement with the Royal Caribbean cruise line. The company inked a deal to produce all of the printed products for the cruise line’s hotel operations and created software to integrate the cruise line’s inventory into its purchasing systems. Rex 3 also automated the inventory ordering for 29 ships worldwide, across seven ship classes — which included 264 different printed products used aboard the ships — by developing automated triggers to reprint materials based on usage.

Continued Growth

Although Rex 3 has seen continued growth throughout the past decade, it doesn’t see itself slowing down in the future. If there’s one thing that is for certain, it’s that the company will continue to rely on the loyalty and dedication of its 200 employees.

“It’s about the people; probably 50 percent have been with the company for more than 25 years,” Shusterman says. “We have lifers here and our success is attributed to the dedication and the support that we get from our employees.”

As for Julius Miller — an avid golfer and amateur singer who was on the radio as a child — he is excited to see what the future holds for Rex 3 in terms of technological advancements, as he plans on being with the company for the rest of his life. He is most proud of the employees who have helped to build a tight-knit community, which the 94-year-old business owner has led through his positive outlook on the company and development of its environment of success.

“The culture is very unique,” Shusterman says. “It starts with the old man running around picking scrap up off the floor ... it’s the family business that sends out a message. We consider everyone in our organization family.”