Jerry Flesher formed the J.A.Flesher Company in 1975 in Topeka, Kansas to supply electronic components to ham radio enthusiasts via mail-order. Soon Jerry was designing and building his own products for sale, including the very successful TU-170, a terminal unit for radio teletype communications. Several other products followed, all aimed at ham radio market.
Technology was changing very rapidly in the late 70’s. Affordable microprocessor devices were flooding the market, and Jerry understood how to use this technology. Flesher’s focus shifted to the design and manufacture of microprocessor-based electronics. Some of Flesher’s early customers included the Santa Fe Railroad, Goodyear Tire and Rubber, the Cable Spinning Equipment Company of Kansas City, the Kansas Bureau of Investigations, and Dupont. One of Jerry’s early colleagues said of him that he was “in the problem-solving business.”
In 1978, Jerry was called-in to look at a broken-down Automark hot foil lettering machine at the American Bindery Plant in Topeka. The Automark was a very old machine – something like a huge typewriter – originally designed to stamp military dog tags. Over the years many bookbinders had adapted the machines for hot-foil stamping on book cover cloth. The machine was large, complicated, difficult to maintain, and the manufacturer had long since gone out of business, but it was standard equipment in many binderies of the era.
Rather than simply repair the machine, however, Jerry improved it. Within a few weeks, he had retrofitted a custom electronic control system to the machine, replacing the old relays and wiring. Also included was a simple display and computer keyboard, allowing the operator to input a complete line of text before stamping.
Jerry’s innovation swept through the bookbinding industry; he performed several dozen such retrofits over the next couple years. At the same time, he was learning a lot about the bookbinding industry. While installing the Automark modifications, Jerry spoke to dozens of people in the industry. Based on their input, he conceived of a new machine design that would use modern technology and dramatically increase productivity.
Jerry spent about a year developing and prototyping his new machine – the System2 – the first purpose-built, microprocessor-controlled, hot-foil lettering machine. It was demonstrated at the 1979 LBI meeting in Florida, and was an unqualified success. Jerry took an order on the spot.
The System2 created a small revolution in the print industry. Foil stamping suddenly was no longer such a bottleneck in the bookbinding process. Flesher Corp shipped 85 System2 machines to bookbinderies in the United States and around the world from 1979 to 1992, when the machine was superseded by the faster and more capable System3.
The System3 represented another small revolution for the industry: Instead of hand-feeding each piece, this machine used an automatic feeder to load cover cloth into the stamping machine. The System3 could be loaded with hundreds of pieces of cloth, and bindery operators would often let the machine run production long after everyone had gone home. With eight axes of motion control, the System3 was groundbreaking 25 years ago, and with modern updates, it’s still the industry standard today. The System3 was just as successful as its predecessor, selling more than 80 units to date.
Having watched the print industry evolve for 20 years, Jerry once again anticipated its changing needs. Flesher began shipping its third generation of hot foil lettering machines – the Premere – in 1999. The Premere proved to be a versatile platform for the continued development of Flesher’s stamping machines, with more than a dozen variations on its basic design. And the Premere has been more successful than all of Flesher’s previous machines combined, with over 400 in service worldwide.
After forty years in the print industry, Jerry retired from Flesher in 2019, and the company he founded was dissolved. The Flesher Company’s intellectual and real property were acquired by Jerry’s former employees, and the company continues today in the form of Premier Hot Foil Lettering.