Publisher will print overseas

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Article Last Updated: 6/15/2005 02:38 PM

Plant to close doors
Publisher will print overseas
By Barbara Smith/Business Writer
TheReporter.Com

An international calendar and award-winning bookmaker is closing the printing portion of its north Vacaville plant, blaming it on the cost of doing business in California.
BrownTrout Publishers, headquartered in San Mateo, notified its 22 Chess Press printing plant employees at its recently expanded Vacaville facility that it will close the printing operation July 8, said Wendover Brown, who owns the company with her husband, Marc, and his identical twin brother, Mike.

'It is very reluctantly that we close,' Brown said in a telephone interview from her San Mateo office. 'We have 22 of the best printing staff in the world working out there. But it just became more and more expensive to manufacture here in California. 'Now, we'll source all of the printing in the Far East, as many of our competitors do,' she said.

The company will continue to distribute products from the Vacaville distribution center.

Chess Press, the printing arm of BrownTrout Publishers, did beautiful work, said Mike Palombo, Vacaville's economic development manager. 'It's always a sad day when you lose a quality business from your community, and we're sorry to hear that in order to remain competitive BrownTrout feels that it must leave the country,' Palombo said.

The company, established in 1986, is the largest publisher of calendars in the world. Affiliate locations include Canada, Quebec, Mexico, England, Germany, Amsterdam, Korea, Tokyo, Australia and New Zealand.

The Vacaville operation, opened in 1998, is housed in a 149,000 square-foot buildi"