Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 33, Number 5, 1 May 2016 — One job leads to another [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

One job leads to another

Mālama Loan helps brothers turn a hobby into a business

ByTreenaShapiro As a eoaeh and dorm adviser at Kamehameha Schools, Caleb Spencer needed custom t-shirts printed on a regular basis. But when the small loeal printers he frequented were too busy to take on his orders, Spencer decided to try his hand at printing t-shirts himself. Three years later, what began as a glorified hobby has heeome a

successful custom apparel printing business, Warrior Printing, whieh puts artwork on roughly 5,000 shirts a month. Many orders eome from Kamehameha Schools and outreach programs that support Native Hawaiians. Spencer launched Warrior Printing with a $25,000 Mālama Loan from the Office of Hawaiian Affairs. The loan allowed him to purchase a small digital printer and the rest of the equipment he and his brothers needed to set up shop under his mother-in-law's home in Liliha. "We were just going to be a small company and take on small orders, 20, 30, 50 shirts at a time," said Spencer, 31. At first the equipment was adequate, but then some larger orders eame in and the Spencers

discovered that printing hundreds of t-shirts one-by-one wasn't really manageable. "It was something that would literally take us all day and all night," Spencer said.

Since silk screening would allow

them to print muhiple shirts at onee, the Spencer brothers upgraded to a manual silk screen maehine that could accommodate larger orders. "Soon the orders were getting bigger and bigger and we just couldn't handle it, so we evolved to where we are now," Spencer said, gesturing toward an automatic silk screen maehine that dominates the small workspace and prints as many shirts an hour as the old digital printer used to do in one day. Now Warrior Printing is boosting its online services, offering team uniform solutions that ean streamline ordering by allowing players to plaee orders directly on the website. "It helps the team mom and doesn't turn paperwork into a full-time job," Spencer said.

An Instaquote feature will not only allow people price their shirt orders, but will also offer a library of images and text to help people create their own designs. "Basically, they ean go on and

design their own shirt, and we ean shoot out a quote. If they like it, they pay for it and iī'll be done within two weeks," said Spencer. The Instaquote option also allows for easy fundraising campaigns — donors ean order off

the website and after subtracting costs, Warrior Printing writes a eheek for the difference. "In this day and age, everything is about convenience and those order forms are so obsolete," said Spencer, although he noted that paper orders still work, too. The brothers are also launching their own clothing line in May called Warrior State of Mind, with several new designs.

Spencer said he has always been entrepre-neurial-minded

but Warrior Printing is the first business idea that's really stuck. "It's working for us and I love what I do. I love making shirts, more so putting artwork down on shirts: what they envision and

what I envision. It's always a bonus," he said. The company has been so successful that he and his wife are about to buy their first home,

one thing Spencer wanted to accomplish before expanding into a commercial space. Spencer said his wife originally told him about the Mālama Loan, whieh he recommends to anyone with a solid business plan. "You can't pass it up. It's a great way to start a business," he said. "We never would have even thought about (starting a business) if it wasn't for the Mālama Loan giving us the opportunity, getting us in the door for that amount." The Office of Hawaiian Affairs has helped more than 2,000 Native Hawaiian families with lowinterest loans to build businesses, repair homes, take care of educational expenses and consolidate debt. For more information on OHA's Mālama Loan Program visit www.oha.org/malamaloan. ■

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You can't pass it up. It's a ;reat way to start a business. We never would have even thought about (starting a business) if it wasn't for the Mālama Loan giving us the opportunity, getting us in the door for that amount." — Caleb Spencer, Owner of Warrior Prin ting

Caleb Spencer (center) used a Mālama Loan to start Warrior Printing, whieh has hired its first employee, Spencer Sproat (left). His brother Gabe Spencer (right) is Warrior Printing's operations manager. - Photos: īreena Shapiro

Above: The new press handles several shirts at a time. Right: Gabe Spencer programs Warrior Printing's new automatic silk screen maehine.