History of Standard Register
1912: Standard Register is founded by John Q. Sherman and inventor Theodore Schirmer with their paper-feeding invention, the pinfeed autographic register. This revolutionary device simplified business transactions and became the “standard.” This meant that instead of just two or three copies, as many as eight copies could be made at one writing with all copies positively fed through the register. It meant that all copies could be printed with lines, check blocks, imprinted items and other things so that forms could now be designed for many systems in addition to the simple sales slip.
1913: The Dayton flood causes the fledging company to miss many delivery dates, and order cancellations or threatened cancellations pushed the firm toward financial disaster.
1916: A one-story, modern factory was built at the present location of Standard Register’s headquarters in Dayton on Albany Street.
1920: Sales volumes reach $1 million.
1960s: Business forms industry growth due to automotive industry and development of computers and optical scanners, sales hit $107.9 million.
1980-1990: Sales volume grows to more $700 million, but when recession hits it causes profits to decrease 50 percent at company.
2013: Company acquires WorkflowOne in a $218 million deal.
March 4, 2015: Company de-listed from the New York Stock Exchange.
March 12, 2015: Company files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and agrees to be sold to a private investment firm.
August 2015: A private Minnesota company, Taylor Corp. completes its acquisition of the assets of Standard Register Co.
For more than a century, the name Standard Register was associated with Dayton, and it was part of a circle of innovative companies that gave the city a reputation as an cradle of invention.
The end of an era, at least for the name, came this week when the name of the document and business services company officially became Taylor Communications.
The change, while sudden, was not unexpected. In August 2015, a private Minnesota company, Taylor Corp. completed its acquisition of the assets of Standard Register Co., which at one point was one of a few publicly traded companies with a headquarters in Dayton.
The newly combined company at the time had more than 12,000 employees working in more than 80 companies with operations in 32 states and nine countries.
"Taylor Corp. is proud to announce the formation of a new subsidiary, Taylor Communications, Inc., under which Standard Register will now go to market as Taylor Communications and Taylor Healthcare," Deb Taylor, Taylor Communications Inc. chief executive, said in a new letter on the company's web site.
She added: “This decision was made after carefully considering Standard Register’s 103-year history in our industry. We are very proud to have this organization as a part of our family of companies. We believe this change more clearly states who we are and our ability to offer some of the most expansive set of products and services in the industry.
“In the coming months, you will begin to see outward changes,” she added. “But you can expect our focus will continue to be on excellence as usual.”
The company’s Twitter account handle has also been changed, to “@Taylor_Comm.”
Messages were left Tuesday with Taylor Corp.’s North Mankato Minn. headquarters office seeking comment on the name change.
Standard Register was founded by John Q. Sherman and inventor Theodore Schirmer in 1912 with their paper-feeding invention, the pinfeed autographic register. This revolutionary device simplified business transactions and became the “standard.”
This meant that instead of just two or three copies, as many as eight copies could be made at one writing with all copies positively fed through the register. It meant that all copies could be printed with lines, check blocks, imprinted items and other things so that forms could now be designed for many systems in addition to the simple sales slip.
In the first decade of the company, sales reached $1 million. In its heyday, company sales reached more than $700 million in the 1980s.
Standard Register’s story began to end about a year ago, when the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. That filing came after the company’s acquisition of local rival WorkflowOne, which began in late 2013.
Total costs of the restructuring tied to the WorkflowOne acquisition were to reach about $30.4 million, the company said at the time.
But the company had also been hampered by years of declining sales, the cost of sales, labor, rent, freight, supply chain expenses and more.
In May 2013, Standard Register attempted something troubled companies sometimes attempt: A reverse stock split. Every five shares of Standard Register’s common and class A stock were converted to one share, reducing the number of outstanding shares and raising the value of each individual share.
The effect was immediate — and temporary. Shares closed at 71 cents one day and were trading at $3.25 the next afternoon.
By July 2014, however, the New York Stock Exchange warned Standard Register — for the second time since 2012 — that its share values were low enough to risk possible de-listing from the exchange.
Standard Register’s most recent CEO cultivated close ties with the community. Joe Morgan was at one time a board member with the Dayton Development Coalition and part of the Leadership Council of Learn to Earn Dayton, an education advocacy group.
Today, Morgan is CEO of Nashville-based Uniguest, a tech company that focuses on “information delivery solutions on digital platforms.”
At the time Taylor acquired it, it had 3,500 workers, including about 850 in Dayton. Taylor has not said how many Dayton employees it has now.
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