Marsid-M&M Group Makes Strides Toward a Successful Future

Some people get involved in the printing industry because of family tradition or true interest in the craft. Others seem to simply fall into it, almost by accident. For the owners of The Marsid-M&M Group in Carle Place, N.Y., it was a little bit of both. Although Sid Halpern and Barry Caputo have had different backgrounds and interests with-in the printing industry, they have nonetheless ended up back at the same place. Now, with two years of solid operation as The Marsid-M&M Group, the pair is ready to broaden the company’s horizons even further.

Career by Chance

For Mr. Halpern, printing was never really part of the career equation. A graduate of
New York Institute of Technology, he worked as a salesman for his father’s wholesale
meat company during the early 1970s. However, supporting his growing family on
$150 per week was nearly impossible. “I didn’t even have enough money to buy
diapers,” he says. “I couldn’t afford anything at all.”

One day, as a way to promote business, and supplement his income, he decided
to print postcards and mail them to nearly 400 butchers in Brooklyn. All of the work
was done on a hand-cranked mimeograph machine and hand-addressed by
Mr. Halpern. The response to the promotion was substantial. “We picked up a lot of
business from it,” he remembers. “It was very, very successful.” After only two weeks,
he decided to purchase an A.B.Dick mimeograph to minimize the hand-intensive
nature of the work.

Soon, Mr. Halpern was printing not only for his father’s business, but for customers of the business as well. Printing up flyers for Brooklyn-based butchers, he says, also helped his father’s business; if they sold more, they bought more from the wholesaler. Still managing to perform his sales job during the day, Mr. Halpern printed at his father’s office at night and on weekends. Eventually, the money he earned from printing flyers more than doubled his salary as a salesman. He decided to concentrate on the printing business and started Marsid Press. Armed with a Multi 1250 and space in the laundry room of his house, he continued to print flyers for a variety of customers.

After only six months, it was evident that Mr. Halpern needed help—and a more suitable space. “You can’t hire someone to come work in your laundry room,” he quips.

In 1973, he opened a storefront shop in Carle Place, just down the street from the company’s current location, and hired Mr. Caputo, Marsid’s first employee. Although Mr. Caputo was just a teenager at the time, his training at a printing trade school gave him a slight edge. “I taught him how to print,” Mr. Caputo says with a smile.

The working partnership continued on and off for the next 15 years. In 1988, the two bought M&M Printing, a print shop in Levittown, N.Y. Al-though both Messrs. Halpern and Caputo had a financial stake in the company, Mr. Caputo was in charge, leaving Mr. Halpern to concentrate on Marsid. Both companies did similar work: flyers, brochures, letterhead, envelopes, business cards, and other printing up to two-colors. Once Marsid purchased an imagesetter in the early 1990s, it also acted as a service bureau.

A New Direction

After more than a decade of working apart, though, it was clear the time had come to reunite the two partners, and merge the two firms. “Even though he was making money and I was making money, there was just something missing for the both of us,” Mr. Caputo says.

Part of the reason for joining the two companies was that Marsid owned the building it had moved to six years earlier. Also, because Mr. Halpern is primarily sales driven and Mr. Caputo is interested in the latest technology for the industry, it seemed the two would make a good team. Still, before anything could be done, Mr. Caputo says, there was one thing to set straight. “The first part of the agreement was that if anything went wrong, we would get out before it ruined our friendship,” he explains. “We wouldn’t jeopardize our friendship.”  Next Page