The Dingley Press began more than 80 years ago in the Lewiston-Auburn area. It was then moved to Portland, and in the 1930s to Freeport when a long term relationship developed with L.L. Bean.
From 1940 to 1972, The Dingley Press was a tenant of L.L. Bean, occupying the ground floor of the L.L. Bean retail store building, and printing catalogs by sheetfed letterpress. New printing methods came along, allowing The Dingley Press to advance from rotary letterpress, to sheetfed offset, and ultimately to web offset with the move to a new facility in Freeport in 1972.
The Dingley Press grew throughout the 1970s due in large part to L.L. Bean, which experienced dramatic growth during this time. The Dingley Press staff increased from 18 employees in 1972 to over 70 in 1981. At that time, L.L. Bean decided to change its catalog printing process to rotogravure, which eliminated The Dingley Press from eligibility as a vendor. The L.L. Bean account was 93% of the Company’s volume when the contract ended in the spring of 1981, forcing all at Dingley to rethink and rebuild to stay alive. Chris Pierce, who has been with The Dingley Press since 1972, purchased the company at this time. Under Chris’s leadership the company grew from $300,000 in annual sales and 30 employees, to over $100 million in annual sales and over 500 employees. In the end it was the hard work of dedicated employees, an unwavering commitment to our customers, a positive attitude (and a little luck) that got us through the tough times.
In the years since, we moved into a new plant in Lisbon and have continued to support existing accounts while developing new ones in an extremely competitive market. In May of 2004, The Dingley Press was sold to The Sheridan Group who combined with The Dingley Press, has over 425 combined years of experience in printing journals, magazines, catalogs, and books. The Dingley Press still operates like the same flexible independent business, but now with the backing of a much larger company. Chris Pierce still serves at The Dingley Press as our current Chairman and is actively involved in managing our sales team. The Dingley Press is now currently ranked as the 5th largest catalog printer in the nation.
