Carin grew up in the offset printing industry. In 1970, her father was one of the founders of Flower City Printing in Rochester, NY. Carin started peeling film for recycling at age 13, from there her summers were filled with bindery work, office work and job ticket filing. She started in a full-time capacity in 1986 and steadily rose through the company to Vice President of Sales Development. In 2016 Carin joined Excelsus Solutions, a large format digital printing company her husband started in 2005.
Carin has always been in the service area of printing in both Account Management to a Sales leader. She has a servant’s heart and enjoys helping people meet their goals, whether they be project, career or life goals. Carin leads with passion and enthusiasm.
Chris Santomassimo: Welcome back to The Think Factory podcast powered by OGC Solutions and I’m your host today, Chris Santomassimo, for the second on-site podcast recording of today—which I’m pretty excited about. I’m now in Rochester, New York with Carin Laniak. Carin is the president of Excelsus Solutions here in Rochester, so welcome to the podcast!
Carin Laniak: Thank you, thanks for having me.
Chris Santomassimo: Sometimes I should just hit the record button when we’re having these little prep sessions because you’re super interesting! [laughter] I’m really excited to shine a spotlight on Excelsus and talk a little bit about what you do.
Carin Laniak: Yes! So my father was one of the founders of Flower City Printing here in Rochester, New York and they started in 1970. I was just a little over a year old then and they grew over the years. I worked there for my entire career until my father retired in 2015; during that time I came over here to my husband’s company, Excelsus.
Chris Santomassimo: Yes, so what were some of the things you did you know growing up at Flower City?
Carin Laniak: Oh my gosh, so me and my three sisters all worked there during summer breaks and vacations—and our first job was peeling film in the basement for recycling. Peeling it away from the mylar and removing the red tape—and we hated it down there in the basement! [laughter]
Chris Santomassimo: Not a glorious job, but one that had to get done. [laughter]
Carin Laniak: That was our first like real kind of job there. But when we were a little younger than that my dad would take us–the four of us—to the plant to give my mom a break. We would spend time running around the plant, so I have fond memories of that when I was little. Then once I graduated high school I started working full-time there and, you know, it was like data entry basically.
I was considering going to RIT for a degree in Print and so I started down that path and took a few courses and I guess I was like “Why am I gonna spend all this money and do this if I have a job in a printing company and it’s all of this already?”
At that time we had—I don’t even know how many presses. It was all offset; we had full bindery, we did brochures and annual reports catalogs. Eventually we got into top sheet and litho and then it would go into a corrugator or converter to be made into boxes, etc. In the 2000s we moved to a new location and got more into the top sheet and litho, but also segued into the retail, the POP, and POS. All of a sudden we became a wide format printer.
Chris Santomassimo: So how’d you venture over here to Excelsus?
Carin Laniak: So when my dad retired in July of 2015—he was the last founder to have retired—and you know with my dad gone it wasn’t the it wasn’t the same for me you know. When my husband started Excelsus in 2005 I had wanted to come here but at the same time my career was really starting to take off so I stayed at Flower City and did management there until I left. The flavor changes when dad’s not there.
It just changes when your dad or your mom your your parent isn’t there anymore, you know? You do a good job; you do a good job first and foremost for your dad—you don’t want to let him down or embarrass them or make mistakes. And then, you know, when he’s not there that kind of motivation goes away a little bit and you’re like “Well, am I really where I need to be right now or want to be right now?”
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