Melville company: from typewriters to printing

Remember typewriters? At Central Business Systems in Melville, they sure do. They've even got a few old Remingtons around. But just for show.

The company, started in Baldwin in 1948 by Tobias Infante, has seen every change in office machine equipment since the post-World War II era, starting with typewriters.

But after a study last year, Central Business took a new tack. It found that many companies don't keep track of how much they spend on printing costs and printing equipment, so it got into what it calls "managed print services."

"The business has grown like wildfire," said company president Michael Chambers, 45.

Last month Central Business moved into new headquarters, 20,000 square feet of space in Melville, about 6,000 square feet larger than its former offices in Plainview. It also hired seven more people and now has 50 employees. Annual sales are about $6 million, up from $5 million about two years ago.

What Central Business found, Chambers said, is that "nine out of 10 companies don't have a clue what printing is costing them," Chambers said. "We've found one of the largest unaudited expenses in corporate America is printing costs. You have people all over a company buying cartridges. Nobody has a handle on" the costs. When they learn the costs, Chamber said, "it comes as a big shock."

His company uses a software program to track such costs and advise companies how to save on cartridges and paper, Chambers said.

It was a great niche, according to Chambers and Sean Infante, 44, company vice president and the grandson of Tobias Infante, who was 83 when he died in 2001.

Sean Infante remembers working side by side with his grandfather in the late 1970s and '80s, when they sold and serviced manual and electric typewriters. Tobias Infante was supposed to have become a bombardier on a B-17 during the war but came down with pneumonia before he could be deployed. Instead he was sent to Hickam Field in Hawaii, where he repaired typewriters.