Printing For Less in Livingston has grown into one of the area’s largest employers

“These last eight months have been the strongest sales period in the company’s history,” said Dave Hawkins, who became the new CEO of PFL in January. “We have become more focused on serving primarily large enterprises through direct mail automation and print and fulfillment.”

Keeping employees inspired and motivated at PFL is one of the keys to the company’s success, helped by traditions of taking dogs to work, maintaining an on-site childcare facility, company horseback rides, whitewater rafting trips, winter potlucks, summer barbecues, monthly “primetime meetings,” employee anniversary kits, open-plan offices and competitive benefits packages, officials with the company say.

“Most of our employees do consider it a very family friendly environment,” said Suzie Lalich, PFL’s vice president of employee success. “There’s lots of opportunity for professional growth.”

In fact, some of the children at PFL’s pre-K daycare grew up and went on to take summer jobs with the company or serve as interns, Lalich said.

“We have a lot of related people working here — but no spouses reporting to one another,” Hawkins said.

Dogs roam freely in portions of the Livingston headquarters — a tradition that began in 1999, when the company’s founder, Andrew Field, brought his border collie/black lab, Jessie, to work.

On Wednesday, some of the office dogs preferred to stick by their owners, while others were more adventurous, greeting people in the hallways or “making the rounds” to particularly friendly workstations.

“There’s a few that are very persistent about their biscuits,” Lalich said.

One of PFL’s elder canines, 11-year-old Tater, was on hand Wednesday with his owner, Maria Siebeck, who also has some longevity with the company. Siebeck is a production coordinator and has been working at PFL for 21+ years. Asked what’s kept her at PFL for so long, she smiled and said, “Bringing my dog to work.” Tater is the second of her dogs who has accompanied her to the office, she said.

21 years ago, the life of a company employee was quite different.

“We were crammed into one little, teeny weeny building,” she said from the cavernous office area. “We have a lot more room now. I would have liked a closet that I shared with six others. [21 years go]. To push back your chair, you had to ask the guy behind you to suck it in.”

Siebeck hails originally from Chicago but now loves Montana.

“I love Livingston — small town,” Siebeck said.

An upper story, outdoor break area at PFL headquarters gives employees quite a view of the mountains — just one of the features of western Montana that make it desirable for many locals who opt to stick around. Peyton Kimmel expressed appreciation for the chance of staying in her neck.

“One of the main reasons why I chose PFL was because I could stay in a place I love,” said Kimmel, who works for PFL as a customer advocate.

Kimmel, a Big Timber resident, started working for PFL in 2022 after she graduated from Montana State University with a degree as a business marketing specialist. Snip, her five year-old dog, was lying on her bed in the Livingston Enterprise’s office as Kimmel spoke.

“She’s retired from being a cow dog to an office dog,” Kimmel said.

Keith Jacobik was present Wednesday to show Enterprise the various areas of the facility, which covers 55,000 square feet, which was built a few years back. The building, which doubled PFL’s capacity, houses two laser engravers, three digital print machines, kitting area, fulfillment area, mailing area and more. Jacobik reported that the UV flatbed printer on the second level was printing a 750 unit order. The previous 10,000 box run took four days.

Jacobik, a Paradise Valley resident, has been with the company since 14 years.

“It’s been great — just awesome people, great challenges all the time,” Jacobik said. “It’s really nice to have a great place to work in a beautiful spot. There’s been lots of opportunities given to me along the way.”

Hawkins, who was appointed to PFL as chief financial officer in 2022, was promoted. Hawkins, a Michigan resident, is married to his wife and has three children.

Hawkins is a Michigan native, but he also spends time in Livingston making personal connections with the staff.

“People do a lot of stuff together outside of work,” Hawkins said. “Me and a few guys were at the bar doing trivia night [at the The Owl Lounge] We won 300 dollars. Last month, we won 500 — it was a bigger crowd.”

Hawkins was an executive in various tech companies before joining PFL. He focused on growing businesses and helping them to achieve sustainable profitability. He was most recently the CEO of ImageSoft which is a major provider of document management software and eFiling services for courts.

“The reason I agreed to come [on board with PFL] is I saw tremendous opportunity to impact millions of people through the power of effective engagement,” Hawkins said. “We serve a lot of big-name customers — Google, Microsoft, Salesforce, Blue Cross, AT&T.”

Hawkins explained that PFL counts among its clients banks, universities, hospitals, and insurance companies.

“While our e-commerce print business thrives serving SMBs (small and medium businesses), our MarTech business sells software subscriptions to Fortune 500 companies, enabling them to include print and direct mail as an integral component of their hitherto digital-only marketing efforts,” said PFL founder Andrew Field in a Wednesday email. “These customers spend hundreds of thousands to millions each year, because they see such outstanding results on the programs they run with us.”

Some residents were alarmed that PFL, a major employer in the local area, had sold one of its buildings back in January. But this sale, in fact, wasn’t a sign of trouble but a smart business movie, Hawkins told The Enterprise.

“We sold the building to free up $11 million in cash to invest in further growth,” Hawkins said. “It was a really healthy thing for us to do.”

This practice of selling a building to a third party and renting it is known as a sale and lease back transaction — a way to raise funds to expand operations, Hawkins said.

A second business move in recent years was to add Goldman Sachs to the investor pool.

“They do not have a controlling interest, so they have a partial share of ownership, and that happened in 2018,” Hawkins said. “It enabled us to expand our software development and sales and marketing functions.”

PFL employs individuals in accounting, finance, childcare, procurement and the print and finishing areas. Lalich indicated that there were a few more than twenty-six open positions at the company as of Wednesday.

A full product and software team was also created by the company in 2014. In addition to designing software that helps companies automate and personalize direct mail processes, PFL’s software engineers also created the database program used by employees throughout the company. Some of the software interfaces to various machinery at Livingston.

“We have a really strong partnership with Salesforce,” Hawkins said. “They consider us to be in the top 10 percent of all their partners. They work together to sell our products. As they sell to their prospects, they mention they can add our software into theirs and create more functionality for their customers.”

Field retired as PFL’s CEO a little over a year ago and sits on the company’s board of directors, but isn’t involved in daily operations these days.

After a fishing buddy suggested that he start a printing shop, Field founded the company. Field was selling auto parts to businesses at the time. But Field also had previous experience working in Minneapolis with Meyers Printing, Sir Speedy, and other companies in the 1980s. After six weeks of market research Field found that there were only two other printers within the Livingston area.

Field hired six employees, bought a $425,000 Heidelberg sheetfed press, and saw the business’ revenue reach $80,000 a month in short order. More than 220,000 customers have been served since the company’s founding, and in the last two years alone, it’s sent 58 million pieces of mail, according to Jennifer Bellin, the company’s chief marketing officer.

“He was a very active leader,” Hawkins said of Field. “There’s not that many people who can say they grew a company to nearly $50 million in annual revenue.”

Lalich stated that she is familiar with Field because she has been with PFL for 16 years.

“He was such a visionary,” Lalich said. “He built an amazing company and was also very passionate about his people, and I would say he left a very strong foundation for us to continue to build on.”

Lalich stated that PFL will continue to be in the good hands of Hawkins, who is also the new CEO.

“He’s really embraced who we are,” she said. “He’s come in and really listened to our employees and is really focused on trying to make the employee experience a really exceptional one, and I think he’s really helped with the growth and the strategies behind driving our growth.”

Hawkins said company officials had contemplated changing PFL’s name.

“We had thought about it last year but decided not to,” Hawkins said. “We have a lot of brand equity in the PFL name, it’s been around for 25 years — a lot of people know us.”

Hawkins said the company wants to continue growing, but isn’t looking to change its vision of “improving lives by connecting people through authentic moments.”