Richard started screen printing in 1980 when he was tired of working in the family business, landscape architecture. He learned screen printing at Eder Manufacturing in Milwaukee, Wisconsin where they printed custom flags and T-shirts for the ad-specialty industry. After he left Eder, Richard worked as a consultant and helped found the American Institute of Screen Printing in Hickory, North Carolina.

In 1983 he was a partner in a start-up printing company in the textile region west of Philadelphia which developed into Shadow Graphics and United Shirts Of America. The sister companies manufactured private label shirts for companies like Jimmy Buffett's Caribbean Soul, Head Sportswear, Lange Ski, Mistral, Puma, MTV, Pony and many more. When Shadow Graphics disbanded, Richard worked for Daulton Imprints and then joined Stretch Devices, Inc. of Philadelphia; (manufacturers of the Newman Roller Frame), as a technical expert.

Richard has been a regular speaker at Imprinted Sportswear shows from 1983 to 1994. He has been a featured speaker at every SPAI (now SGIA) Convention from 1984 to 1995, and spoke at TechSymps in 1985, 1988 and 1990 and the new versions Tech'94 and '95. He has spoken on screen printing all over the world including England, Canada, Norway, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, New Zealand, Australia, Mexico and Colombia. During 1990 and 1991 Richard traveled with the Stahls' University on Tour to 65 cities giving seminars on "How to Use a Computer in the Art Room" and "Screen Printing Troubleshooting".

Richard was voted 'Best Industry Columnist' by readers of The Press Magazine in 1986, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91 and 1992 for the monthly column he had in Screenprinting magazine from 1986 to 1993 called "Greaves on Garments". He has written for Impressions and the English textile magazine Images. In 1994 Richard was named Technical Editor for Printwear magazine. He also contributed work to the Art and Screen chapters of Joe Clarke's book about process printing "Control Without Confusion" and started the annual 3 day 'Textile Process Printing' seminar for the SGIA at their headquarters in Virginia.

In 1986 Richard was a runner up in Impressions Magazine's 10th year 'Best of the Industry' poll in: Most Influential Individual, Most Influential/Innovative Graphic Designer, and Most Consistently Innovative/Outstanding Textile Screen Printer categories. In the Impressions Magazine Quest for the Best Poll 1990 and 92 (there was no '91 Quest), Richard was voted Best Industry Consultant and runner up to his friends at Stahls for Single Most Helpful Seminar and runner up for Best Screen Print Technical Literature for his column by the readers. In 1995 Richard wrote a book on the 54 variables of screen printing which has been printed as the September issue of Printwear magazine

Since 1987, Richard has worked as an independent consultant to screen printers, specializing in garments and pre-press. He worked with screen printers designing business and technical systems to increase production, computer systems, training programs and quality improvement programs. As an expert in all phases of garment printing and screen systems he also worked with many industry vendors. Richard lives in Saint Louis and can be reached at:

Richard Greaves
richard@richardgreaves.com

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