Preparations are in full swing for the school's open house on Sunday, but we're never too busy to talk about Notre Dame alumni, both young and old. The Notre Dame Alumni Association recently distributed the fall 2013 edition of IRISH, its biannual news magazine. Articles included in the publication ranged from the story of how a 1933 graduate of St. Frederick (and former nurse) helped American GIs in World War II, to the 2009 alum from Notre Dame Prep who won a national honor and gave the commencement address at Michigan State University.
IRISH also included many articles on graduates of Notre Dame High School, including the story below about a 1970 NDHS alumnus who has taken a business from his garage to a new 80,000 square-foot building in Sterling Heights.
To read the fall-2013 IRISH in its entirety and to access back issues, click here.
From cola to cruisin’
NDHS grad took his business from a small garage to a new 80,000-square-foot facility
It's another busy spring day at EA Graphics in Sterling Heights, Mich. Owner Bob Artymovich, a 1970 graduate of Notre Dame High School, is preparing for one of his company's signature events, the Woodward Dream Cruise, for which EAG is the exclusive merchandise supplier. A huge order for Ohio State University also seems to be everywhere in the production area, and on top of trying to fulfill another year of making three to four million t-shirts, he's planning to move into a much bigger 80,000 square-foot building.
Artymovich's office is stacked high with as much paper as his warehouse is stacked with boxes of apparel awaiting shipment to worldwide destinations. It's a long way from the company's origins in his garage.
EA Graphics, which is his newer name for the original company, Ethnic Artwork, started out in higher volumes making shirts for the ethnic festivals that used to be held at Detroit's Hart Plaza in the 70s and 80s. But before that, Artymovich was working a regular job and making t-shirts by hand in his backyard.
A trip to Dallas to a screen-printer trade show, however, opened his eyes to a much bigger world. He saw an automatic screen-printing machine and was flabbergasted that a machine could print 350 to 400 shirts an hour. "I called my wife and said, 'Wait till you see this thing!' She said, 'What the heck would you do with it? We don't print 350 shirts a month!'"
Even though his wife thought he was out of his mind, Artymovich went ahead and bought the machine, along with a dryer. "So now I have this cool machine but didn't have building to put it in. My garage was obviously too small," he says.
"So we got a building in Saint Clair Shores, put this big machine in and we're ready to go. But guess what. We didn't have any orders
for business."
Then Artymovich did what any self-respecting new business owner would do. He went "big."
"I went downtown to Coca-Cola's regional office in Detroit and said I'd like to print some t-shirts for them." But Coke already had a supplier. Undeterred, he suggested to them a spin-off on their tagline at the time, "Coke adds life," for t-shirts.
"How about 'Coke adds life to Saint Clair Shores' and 'Coke adds life to Lansing,' and 'Coke adds life to Warren,' etc., and I'll make you the t-shirts," he told them. "But they still wouldn't budge." Only after offering a 4,000 shirt order that included a provision to buy back any unsold shirts did Coke finally bite. "Long story short, Coke ended up buying 25,000 shirts with 28 different cities represented," he says.
The Coke work ended up leading to more work, and six months later, Artymovich was the exclusive shirt supplier to Ford Motor Co., and their "Built Ford Tough" advertising campaign to the tune of 125,000 t-shirts.
Artymovich quickly expanded his business even more, purchased other companies, and in 1981 moved into bigger digs in Fraser, where he operated for another eight years.
Bob Artymovich ’70 (NDHS) stands in his new production facility in Sterling Heights, Mich. He moved operations there this fall.
He had a lot on his plate at the time of this interview, especially with the Dream Cruise around the corner and his new factory soon to open. He ships t-shirts all over the country and has an exclusive contract with the MHSAA to provide championship sportswear throughout the state. But Artymovich still finds time for one of his other loves: golf. In fact, he plays regularly in a league with some fellow ND alums, including Mike Peltz '70 (NDHS). He also coaches varsity golf at Regina High School—"20 years and counting"—and was inducted into the CHSL coaches hall of fame two years ago.
Artymovich says he loves to coach the kids at Regina, which is where his daughter Josephine, who helps him run the business, graduated. His son, Richard, is general manager of EAG, his daughter, Genevieve, is a teacher, and another daughter, Katherine, is a bio-scientist.
Looking back at his own high school career, Artymovich says he spent his freshman year at Austin High School because of a waiting list at Notre Dame. But he finished up at NDHS, has fond memories of the school, and holds dear the class time he spent with many of the teachers and staff there, including Hal Rice, (former Marist Br.) Frank Fournier, Bill Schram, Ken Parent, Roy Johnson and Conrad Vachon.
Artymovich recalls especially an encounter with Vachon on his graduation day. "I went up to Mr. Vachon after the ceremony and said that I'm sure happy to see this diploma because I wasn't sure I was going to make it. He said 'Until last night, you weren't.' I didn't know if he was joking or not!"