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BOULDER - The strain of repairing the reputation of Estey Printing can be sensed in the jovial cynicism of longtime Boulder printer Bill Hayes. "If I had to do it all over again, I probably wouldn't do it," he jokes.
When Hayes bought the assets of Estey Printing almost two years ago, the company was heavily in debt after having been purchased in 1997 by ProGraphics Print and Copy Center in Woodland Park, Colo. According to documents from Boulder County District Court, Estey had been placed under a court-ordered receivership to protect the assets from any more losses.
"I had to deal with people who were owed a lot of money, and I had to tell them that there was not enough money to pay them what they were owed," Hayes says. "But I bought it because it had fabulous employees, and at one time, a great reputation in Boulder."
Gaining experience
Hayes has been involved in the printing business in Boulder since 1972 when he first took a job at his then father-in-law's business, Boulder Printing. After working there for eight years, he branched out on his own and started Hayes Printing, which he ran for 15 years before taking over Estey.
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