New Blog Series: Getting There

In our new blog series, “Getting There,” we ask professionals and experts what it takes to be successful and what kinds of advice they can offer. And, as we believe the concepts of curiosity, creativity and communications are vital to contributing to the success of any endeavor, we are also interested in knowing which they have utilized most often and how.

Jeff Johnston is president of E.O. Painter Printing in DeLeon Springs. Their company is the oldest continuously operated printing company in the state of Florida. The following was excerpted from the Volusia Voices documentary book project. His simple tool for effective communications can be utilized by everyone.

"I communicate pretty effectively with my writing because that’s a lot of what we do. We don’t write e-mails informally. They’re well thought out and they become a document.

In today’s world, I don’t get a lot of first-class mail that matters. It’s all e-mail. Some of it is horrendous. It’s hard to look at and see misspelled words all the time. But, as a company, there is a lot of pride in our communication. We want it to look like a business letter every time we communicate. That’s important. So I can write a business letter to communicate."