Jostens Nears 100 Years of Preserving Memories
For nearly 100 years, Jostens Inc. has been creating memories from life’s milestones.
When the Minnesota Twins won the World Series in 1987 and 1991, Jostens made the championship rings. The company also made the 1986 Super Bowl rings for the Chicago Bears, including William “The Refrigerator” Perry’s size 23 diamond-encrusted hunk of gold that fit around a Kennedy half-dollar.
When the “Cheers” TV show ended in 1993 after 11 years on the air, Jostens was asked to make a photo memory book for those who had worked on the program.
But the company’s bread and butter is not the high-profile, celebrity work. Jostens is more about the memories of the kid next door. Jostens makes more than half of all high school yearbooks sold in the United States, sells the class rings in about 40% of the country’s schools and prints 61% of the high school diplomas.
At John F. Kennedy Senior High School in Bloomington, a steady stream of students stopped by the booth of Jostens sales representative Mark Anderson recently to look at ring designs and pick up the company’s catalog.
Anderson said 75% to 80% of the school’s students traditionally order class rings. This fall, for the first time, they’ll have a choice between traditional rings and a new design for the millennium.
Sophomore Nicole Forbragd liked both the traditional and the new styles.
“This kind of looks like my mom’s,” she said. “But I like the ‘99, too. I think that it’s special to be the last of this century.”
Another student knew just what he wanted--a big gold ring with a center stone encircled by diamonds.
Anderson tried to steer the student away from the diamond version--which had a price tag of more than $800--to one with cubic zirconia. Ring price start at around $70.
“I would get the fake diamonds. No one will be able to tell except a jeweler,” Anderson said.
Jostens, based in Bloomington, also prints graduation announcements and makes caps and gowns. The company has come a long way since Otto Josten founded a watch repair business in Owatonna in 1897 and began making emblems, awards and class rings for schools.
The company expanded its school products line in the 1940s and ‘50s to include graduation announcements, diplomas and yearbooks. In the ‘60s and ‘70s, Jostens moved into school photography, graduation caps and gowns and business recognition awards. A decade later, it began making customized products for colleges, universities and other groups.
Jostens enjoyed strong, steady growth with increasing earnings and sales for 34 years--until it ran into trouble in fiscal 1992 and began a two-year slide that bottomed in fiscal 1994 with a $16.2-million net loss.
During the rocky period, Jostens had a nearly complete turnover in management. Since then, the company has pared away some of its side businesses--educational software, sportswear and computer-based aviation training--and refocused on its strengths, selling achievement and recognition products.
“They got rid of the bummers,” said David Leibowitz, managing director of Burnham Securities in New York. “There’s no question that getting back to the core business of yearbooks and school jewelry will help.”
For the fiscal year ended June 30, Jostens reported net earnings of $51.6 million, compared with $50.4 million in fiscal 1995.
“We sold nearly 10% more class rings--the second straight year of improvement after a 12-year decline,” said Robert Buhrmaster, president and chief executive officer.
Jostens hopes to continue building its sales as the high school population grows 1% to 2% a year for the next 10 years. The company also hopes to increase its market share by grabbing some business from competitors.
In the ring business, major Jostens competitors Balfour, Gold Lance and CJC Holdings are merging into a new company to be called Class Rings Inc.
“We look at that as an opportunity for us,” said Kevin Whalen, vice president for corporate communications and investor relations. “We think they’ll have some hurdles that will distract them from the market.”
Over the years Jostens has been ready to meet challenges, said Jack Thornton, who joined the company 18 years ago and oversees the printing and publishing arm of the business.
Once when Jostens got behind on an order, the company chartered a seat on a plane to ship a stack of yearbook covers to its plant in State College, Pa., so the books could be completed before school was out for the summer, Thornton said.
In the early 1980s, when a trucking company went bankrupt and Teamsters were holding cargo hostage until they got paid, Jostens went to the head of the national union to get the books released in time for graduation, he said.
Customers had begun complaining that class rings hadn’t changed since their grandmothers graduated from high school, leading Jostens to introduce the “new millennium” line of rings aimed at students graduating around the turn of the century.
At Kennedy High, sophomore Tim MacDonald, who will graduate in 1999, said he was considering one of the millennium rings.
“The feeling of graduating at the end of a thousand years is kind of neat,” MacDonald said.
Jostens is test marketing rings with sports motifs--aimed at people who love sailing or golfing, for instance--and has produced a retail line of rings for Star Trek fans.
Company executives also anticipate growth internationally, modifying their successful school products lines to appeal to other cultures.
“We’re almost 100 years old. Our goal would be to stay around for the next 100 years. To do that, you have to change,” Thornton said.
