PrintingNews.com

Sentinel Printing Co., now a third generation mid-size commercial printer, started out 150 years ago in a barn as a newspaper in downtown Hempstead, N.Y. Glen Boehmer, owner of Sentinel Printing Co., continues a family tradition of printing, passion, and excellence that has been thriving for generations.

"[When the company started,] the Vanderwaters purchased the company and operated the newspaper in the 1950s, then as Newsday became a daily paper and more popular, Sentinel moved away from journalism and into printing," Boehmer began.

"The Vanderwaters bought the current two buildings and a Heidelberg Windmill Letterpress. William Boehmer III, my father, purchased Sentinel in the 1980s and it's been in the family since then. I took over 15 years ago. We still have and use the original Heidelberg press (that the Vanderwaters purchased)," he continued.

Sentinel was a single-color offset printer in the 1980s. The company's work included marketing materials and newsletters, similar to today's jobs, and commercial business-to-business forms, which are no longer often used.

The Boehmers bought their first two-color press and introduced the prepress department along with desktop publishing, Postscript, and their own typesetting. Over the years, Sentinel became a four-color printer, and eventually six color.

"We started paginating film output. We first bought digital presses seven years ago and CTP technology a year and a half ago. Our first digital press was a Heidelberg DI press. Three years ago, we purchased a Xerox 8000-250. We now have CTP, Web 2 Print, job management systems, and automated workflows," said Boehmer.