Al Kennickell is the longtime President of The Kennickell Group, a Savannah-based print, direct mail, and marketing logistics company, a role he has held since 1977. Under his leadership, the company evolved from a regional printing business into a technologically advanced, internationally connected operation.
A forward‑thinking innovator, Kennickell guided the company to become one of the first U.S. printers to achieve ISO 9000 certification, expanded into global fulfillment, and introduced early online storefront technologies that reshaped client distribution workflows. He also spearheaded major growth in wide‑format printing, custom wallcoverings, and direct mail production—driving the company to become ten times larger than when he first took the helm.
Committed to continuous innovation, Kennickell remains an influential voice in the printing industry, advocating for advancements in automation, data‑enhanced direct mail, and emerging technologies shaping the future of print.
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Chris Santomassimo: Al is the president of The Kennickell Group in Savannah, GA. Welcome to the podcast.
You know what, as we were talking about before the podcast, Al, you know, one of the many things that’s really intriguing about The Kennickell Group is the fact that you guys are a third and 4th generation family business and have succeeded, despite a lot of challenges, you kind of beat the odds and here you are as a successful company. You’re the third generation and you told me you got the 4th generation in the building already. So congratulations.
Al Kennickell: Well, thank you.
Chris Santomassimo: I would love for you to just tell folks that may not know The Kennickell Group, kind of what you do and what you’re good at, which is a lot of things, I know because you got a pretty broad range of printing related services.
But talk about the business and talk about how you got to where you are today.
Al Kennickell: So the business was was founded by my grandfather in 1892 and and he prior to starting the printing company, he actually worked as a typesetter for the Savannah Morning News.
In 1932, my father and his twin brother took over the business and, and, and they, you know, built it up, made it pretty successful.
But here’s one thing that’s that was a key factor in, you know, why we were able to grow the business a lot more than the than the second generation did. And it really goes back to the depression. My dad and his twin brother were 19 years old when the depression started. And so they, you know, spent a lot of their years during the depression, which is my dad used to tell me you don’t have any idea what poor is until you would live through the depression.
So they did, they were successful, but they were also very cautious. I think that if you come up through the depression, your, your goal is, I don’t want to go back to being poor like we were during the depression.
I’ll give you an example. I think, I think that in the year 1932, the, my father, his twin brother, his, their, their father and their sister all lived above the printing company in a, in an apartment. And the printing company that year grossed $7500. So the $7500 that they did in that year went to buying food, buying, you know, paper, things like that. And you know, so it was, it was a tough existence, but when I joined the company, I, I, I got out of College in 1977 and joined the company right then. And then, you know, we had other family members in the business. I wasn’t really comfortable with the direction some of them might have wanted to go and was able to convince the, the board to elect me president of the company.
And when that happened, you know, I now had control and we started doing things the way I wanted to do them. But, you know, I went when I, I bought the company in, in 1981. And it, at that time, I really had no net worth. I didn’t own a house And, and so I didn’t have much to lose. And I, I said to, I said to my uncle, I said, you know, I’m going to, I’m going to borrow $400,000 and I’m going to buy a four color press or, or you winter out. And that’s really what made the buy thing happened because they, he wasn’t interested in that.
So, and then I, I bought my dad out at the same time, bought the four color press. That changed everything. Because in, in the printing world, if you’re printing four color process on A2 color press, which was fairly common back then, it, it was hard to make something look really good. So we made that move. And then and that, that was, I would say that was the first reinvention of the business.
And for, for their things really took off. So, you know, that was, and, and I’ll, and I’ll say this, that I probably borrowed $10 million in my career and bought equipment, things like that.
And, and you know, I was always very careful to, there’s things you can do that you can make certain mistakes depending on the size of the company you are and survive them. But some you can’t.
But I think the biggest press we bought, we, I think I borrowed $2.8 million to buy a $6.40 inch press. And you know, that worked out well.
But then again, in this day and time, they’ve got these, oh, it’s a 40 inch inkjet press it the company, it was Benny Landa, the Landa, you know, so people approached me about buying that and I said, you know what, I can make a $2,000,000 mistake and, and still be around. But the Landa was a $4 million device.5:16 And I said, you know what, you can’t, I can’t buy a $4 million piece of equipment. And if it doesn’t doesn’t work out, I’m probably not going to survive that.
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