Since its inception in 1953, Mailing Services of Pittsburgh, or MSP, has seen many changes in the printing and mailing industry. Started by the current President’s father and grandfather in the basement of their home, running the business was a part-time venture for the Bushee family until the mid sixties. In 1965, Bushee’s father went full time and left his job at the Pittsburgh Press. In 1978, MSP moved to a 30,000 square foot building in the suburbs of Pittsburgh.

The company is now located in a 150,000 square foot building with over 400 employees. MSP is the parent company to four distinct areas; a printing company, an agency that specializes in non-profit fundraising, the commercial lettershop, and a digital solutions group called MSP Digital Direct.

TECHNOLOGY

MSP’s printing division added a new eight color half web press in response to an increase in demand. The vision press by Drent Goebel gave MSP faster make ready times and a closed loop color system for quality control. “We’ve added technology to improve our efficiencies and our throughput,” says Rich Bushee.

Eight years ago, MSP invested in their first digital printing press - the HP Indigo 3000. Today they have three Indigo’s and are probably looking to add a fourth this coming Spring. “We are investing in the digital printing side of the business.” Bushee went on to say, “I see digital as a very rapidly growing part of our business. More and more clients are interested in speaking with their customers on a 'one to one' level and want more high touch, more personalized communications and you need the digital printing technology in order to meet those demands.”

STANDING OUT

“We’re a very flexible organization. We strategically plan where we’re going, but we also communicate with our clients and we understand where they’re going,” says Bushee. “It’s important for us to understand their needs and where they’re heading. That helps drive some of our equipment purchases and investments.”

MSP will continue to invest in equipment to help satisfy their clients’ needs, which Bushee believes makes MSP a better organization. “Besides equipment and technology, MSP invests in our people,” Bushee adds. “We are investing in great talent, bringing people in that understand our business and our industry and we’re developing our people and building a winning team to help us grow as well.”

GOING GREEN

MSP is a member of the Green Marketing Coalition, or GMC. Founded by a client of MSP, The Hacker Group, GMC is made up of a diverse group of marketers who work together to brainstorm ideas on how to best reduce their carbon footprint.

“It’s helped us tremendously,” Bushee expresses. “We’ve done a lot of things in the last two years. We’ve added a Cyclone Recycling System. It’s a system that automatically collects all of the paper waste generated by our equipment and routes into a dumpster that is then taken directly to the recycling facility ”

MSP recycles over 2 million pounds of paper in a year. Last year the organization invested in new energy efficient lighting fixtures and light bulbs throughout the building that resulted in over $30,000 per year in energy savings.

LOOKING AHEAD

“The areas of growth that we’re concentrating on today will be further highlighted [in the next five years],” says Bushee. “Our agency is a really concentrated growth area. We’re really good at helping our clients raise money, that’s one of the areas in which we’re concentrating a lot of our growth.”

For the digital side of the business, that is the way of the future and MSP will see more of its technology investment go into that part of the business. “We are really driving our front end technology, giving our clients more one-to-one communication capabilities,” Bushee concludes.