Prior to the game, 75 volunteers reached out to a sold out crowd asking Blues fans to give in support of the earthquake-torn country.  

When the numbers were in, $20,000.00 was raised - largely in part due to the support of fifteen local area companies, their employees, friends and family members  - Custom Cuts, John Henry Foster, GFI Digital, Hollyberry Baking, Keane Charitable Group, Masterchem-Kilz, Missionary Oblates, RBO Print Logistix, St. Louis Blues, St. Louis Business Journal, St. Louis Scott Gallagher SC, St Patrick Center, Debbie Traubitz and Frank Hankin, The Type House, Vetta Sports Clubs, Gary Welker and Wells Fargo. 

All dollars raised will benefit the victims of the earthquake via the St Patrick Center, the Crudem Foundation and the Missionary Oblates.  For more information, please visit stpatrickcenter.org, crudem.org or oblatesusa.org.

For all of those whom volunteered or showed their support in one way or another, we truly appreciate your generosity.

GFI Digital, a local startup that’s propelled itself into a multi-million company in just 10 years, is changing the way people print, copy, fax and scan at work. Company president Bruce Gibbs and vice president Mark Kehoe left a powerhouse imaging technology firm to start GFI in 1999. Between the two of them, they have 50 years of industry experience.

The company, which provides multi-functional office machines, has a reputation for being an industry leader when it comes to emergency response time, client savings and employee loyalty. To date, it has sold more than 14,800 machines. It is headquartered in St. Louis and has five other locations in Missouri and Illinois.

“We already knew the business and what customers expected,” Gibbs says. “So when we had the opportunity to become a Sharp electronics dealer—selling a great name and a great product—it was enough to make us jump off the corporate bandwagon and do our own thing.” With the help of some seed money from his siblings (GFI stands for Gibbs Family Investment), Gibbs says the company hit the ground running. “Mark and I, along with an employee, John Hauck, had long histories in the business, and we just started pounding the pavement.”

GFI boasts a customer list with some of the biggest names in local business, including Coldwell Banker Gundaker, Schnucks, Peabody, St. Louis Blues and the Missouri National Guard, but its main clientele is comprised of smaller companies like law firms, accounting agencies and independent businesses. “Our bread and butter is helping a business with one product and showing them how to save on their output costs,” notes Gibbs. “They’re just not copying these days, they’re also trying to eliminate wasteful printing. So a total solution would be to help them figure out what they want to do with the documents before they print.”

Gibbs says GFI has been able to grow successfully by consistently delivering quality Sharp and Ricoh products and backing them up with great service. “We don’t worry about what the competition is doing,” he says. “We just focus on making great buys from the manufacturer, pricing them right, establishing a good relationship with our customers and training our salespeople and technicians to be better than anyone else.”

Before long, GFI expanded its employee base to keep up with the company’s growth. “During our second year, our top competitor laid off more than 200 workers,” Gibbs says. “That, in turn, allowed us to hire pros with more than 15 and 20 years of customer service experience.” He says as a rule, the company continues to recruit some of the most experienced and knowledgeable staff around. “We have industry benchmarks that we hit on a daily, monthly and yearly basis,” he explains. Among them is an emergency response time of 2.6 hours (versus the 4-hour industry standard).

The result, Gibbs says, is satisfied customers. “Our client retention is at 90 percent,” he says. “When you have great products and great people, you have happy customers.”  

St. Louis-based GFI Digital delivers and services multifunctional Sharp and Ricoh products, offering a five-step process to determine, implement and maintain a custom solution for each customer. Its six locations in Missouri and Illinois offer an experienced staff of technicians and customer service representatives. Pictured on the cover, clockwise from bottom right: vice president Mark Kehoe, president Bruce Gibbs, Matt Schuler, Kevin Simmons, Patti Crocker, John Hauck, Jeff Cook and Elliot Fritsche. For more information, call 997-6300 or visit www.gfidigital.com.

As part of their ongoing commitment to the community, GFI hosted a special tailgate party for children during the first intermission of the St. Louis Blues hockey game on Friday night, December 18th.  Several children and their families enjoyed time with Santa, as he handed out candy canes, teddy bears, and holiday cheer.

To learn more about helping St. Louis area children who are critically or chronically ill, please visit http://www.stlouischildrens.org/content/WaysToGive.htm.

• Color enhances communication.
• Color increases accuracy.
• Color improves your image.
• Color sells.

To learn more as to why the demand for color output is rising, download the white paper at http://blogs.zdnet.com/doc/?p=786.

The Herbert Hoover Boys & Girls Club provides a safe place for children to learn and grow. Their mission is to inspire and enable youth ages 6 to 18 to realize their full potential as productive, responsible and caring citizens. For more information, please visit www.hhbgc.org.

The new vehicles, Ford Transit Connects, were selected for their large cargo space and fuel efficiency.  With the added space, GFI service technicians will systematically maintain the necessary  customer parts and supplies in order to continue to service its 15,000 plus MFP's in the field.