The Story

The story of Samco Machinery, referred to by founder Joe Repovs as ‘The Great Journey’, is a story of a small manufacturing company founded in 1972 evolving into an industry leader and global innovator in rollforming and value-added solutions over the course of five decades. It is a story of perseverance, continuous innovation, and of building long-term relationships with business partners, customers, and employees alike. Under second-generation family leadership today, Samco operates on a set of core values that define the baseline for everything the company does: The PATRIOT values of Passion, Accountability, Trust, Respect, Innovation, Open Communication and Teamwork are paired with the P3 principles of People, Products, Passion to represent Samco’s value system and unique culture.

The Mandate

When the Repovs family commissioned us to create a company history book to mark their company’s 50^th anniversary, they were looking for a coffee table book that they could distribute to long-time customers, business partners and employees as part of their milestone celebrations. Equally important to the family was to create a record of the life and entrepreneurial journey of company founder Joe Repovs and of the founding and early years of Samco. The Repovs family approached their book as an opportunity to honour long-time relationships that had helped make Samco successful. This is reflected in the wide range of perspectives provided by the many stakeholders interviewed to create the source base for this book.

Our Solution

When we started the project, the world was in the grip of the Covid-19 pandemic. This mandated that all interviews were to be conducted via video conference. As we interviewed founder Joe Repovs, second generation president and CEO Bob Repovs, members of the Repovs family, employees, business partners and customers, the story of Samco emerged. Early in the process, we realized that Samco is a truly value-driven business that has been shaped by two generations of Repovs family entrepreneurs who share the same values yet adhere to their own unique approaches and business philosophies. The realization led to the creation of separate chapters exploring in detail the business philosophy and leadership style of father and son. Continuous innovation is the common thread weaving through the Samco story. This made it imperative to fully develop this theme by identifying innovation milestones and following continuous improvement patterns over the course of 50 years. The design approach chosen by Lesley Warren and the design team reflects the celebratory nature of the book: the Samco brand colours of blue and yellow, a deliberately simple yet elegant cover design, and the use of heavy 100 lb. uncoated paper stock define the sophisticated look and feel of the book while the timeline graphic titled “A Journey Through Time”, full page quotes and a large number of photographs visually represent the Repovs family’s emphasis on People, Products and Passion.