Until this week, Fort Lauderdale-based Atlas Embroidery and Screen Printing was a little-known company quietly producing promotional shirts, hats, caps and bags for corporate clients – and struggling through a down economy.

Then, in December, Atlas was awarded a statewide contract by Reebok, a subsidiary of German sportswear giant Adidas, to produce the official T-shirt for the Super Bowl.

By 10 p.m. on Feb. 7, as a bucket of Gatorade was being dumped on New Orleans Saints head coach Sean Payton, Atlas’ five screening machines began cranking out championship T-shirts.

“We were given the task of keeping up a production rate of 2,200 pieces per hour,” VP of Sales Adam Cohen said. “We were able to run at maximum efficiency all throughout the night, with all five automatic presses.”

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With still days of world championship partying ahead in New Orleans, two weeks of intensive Super Bowl-related work are finally winding down for one Florida distributor. As an official project partner with Reebok, Atlas Embroidery and Screen Printing (asi/700400) recently produced tens of thousands of Super Bowl-logoed apparel items at its Ft. Lauderdale manufacturing site. “We had our five presses running since the AFC Championship game [two weeks ago],” says Adam Cohen, vice president of sales at Atlas. “After the Super Bowl, we ran them until 10:00 [Monday morning]. This has given us a major shot in the arm.”

The screen printed apparel, which ranges from short sleeve T-shirts to hoodies, was distributed and then sold at sporting goods stores, hotels and other venues throughout Florida. Atlas printed several designs, including items featuring Peyton Manning and Super Bowl MVP Drew Brees. “We had been on their [Reebok's] radar and we got an opportunity to put a bid package together,” says Cohen. “We went through an extensive site survey, but it came down to our ability to do the job quickly and efficiently. I’d say we hit it out of the park.”

Rather than hire additional temporary workers, Atlas offered its staff of around 60 employees a large amount of overtime hours. “We probably had 60 to 70 hour weeks,” says Cohen. “It gave us the chance to give our people big chunks of money in their paychecks to start them off well for the year.”

Following this successful run, Atlas is now developing specialty apparel concepts for Reebok for other sports, including NCAA and professional basketball. Already, Atlas works as a prestige partner with Staples Promotional Products (asi/120601), servicing large clients like Coca-Cola, UPS and Google. “We basically work as an in-house ad agency, bringing ideas from the retail side,” says Cohen. “We’re not just a contract printer. We have these specialty projects as well.”

Adam Cohen pulled an all-nighter following the New Orleans Saints’ Super Bowl victory.

The company he works for, Fort Lauderdale-based Atlas Embroidery and Screen Printing, went into overdrive Sunday night, printing the official Super Bowl T-shirt.

“We were given the task of keeping up a production rate of 2,200 pieces per hour. That started at 10 last night,” said Cohen, vice president of sales. “We were able to run at maximum efficiency all throughout the night with all five automatic presses.”

Cohen said he spent much of Sunday night working and conducting media interviews.

Getting the Super Bowl contract wasn’t easy. There was an intensive interview with Reebok, the official master licensee of the NFL, Cohen said.

Reebok won’t let him divulge just how many shirts Atlas is producing, but he said it had received a few 53-foot trailer loads, with more on the way.

Atlas also produced the AFC Championship T-shirts, and was making them right up until the Super Bowl.

“We have been on pretty much a 24-hour schedule for the last two weeks,” Cohen said. “We printed dueling merchandise for the last two weeks – that’s your head-to-head matchup T’s.”

There was a bit of scrambling at the last minute, admits Cohen, a diehard New England Patriots fan.

“We hedged our bets toward Colts, we had the facility set up to run Colts merchandise on three of the five presses, so we could be ready to react,” he said.

But, as the clock ticked down, Atlas realized it needed to change its game plan.

“As soon as the Gatorade was dumped on the coach, Saints merchandise began to run,” he said.

Atlas was started in 2002 by Mitchell Lombard, who lost his job in corporate America just after Sept. 11. He began with one machine and two employees in a 900-square-foot bay.

Today, there are five machines and 60 employees. Cohen said most have been working in shifts around-the-clock for the last two weeks.

Although it’s a big contract, Cohen said the Super Bowl deal is “just gravy on top of our traditional business.”

Atlas produces specialty apparel packages for several Fortune 500 companies, including Coca-Cola, Subaru, Google, Anheuser-Busch and UPS.

The shirts are being sold to all tiers of retail south of Jacksonville.

Copyright 2010 bizjournals.com

Reporting
Tiffani Helberg

With two minutes left in the Super Bowl, a Fort Lauderdale small business launched into overdrive. Atlas Embroidery and Screen Printing began printing the official Super Bowl T-shirt with the Saints as the winner. Nearly all the employees were expected to work through the night to keep the presses going.

“We’ve got five automatic presses and each of those presses will be doing about 400 pieces per hour,” estimated owner Adam Cohen. “So I don’t know. I figure 2,000 pieces per hour.”

The machines are expected to run for at least 14 hours straight, cranking out T-shirts that will be distributed throughout the Southeast region.

“I’m feeling as though its gonna be a very long night,” Cohen said. “You know we’ve got a lot of things going on here. We’ve got a ton of production to do.”

While the big game is over for the Saints and the Colts, the big game is just beginning for this small business. But they said they are eager to do it as it also means a big financial windfall.

“In this economy, it’s definitely been great,” he said.

The first set of official Super Bowl shirts were printed ahead of time so that the Saint would be able to wear them as soon as the game was over. Now, the rest of the batches will go to eager fans.

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