PRESS RELEASE: November 2008
CONTACT: Barbara Marino
bmarino@mgpc.net ● 800.457.4570
www.mrsgrossmans.com
 
Sticker Pioneer Andrea Grossman Passes the Sticker Torch to Her Son
 
Mrs. Grossman’s will celebrate its 30th anniversary in 2009 – Keeping it all in the Family!
 
Petaluma, CA. November 2008 – Almost thirty years ago, graphic designer Andrea Grossman pioneered a new industry called stickers. Now, after three decades, she is stepping down as president of the legendary company that bears her name and has named her son, Jason Grossman, her successor.

“I started working for my mom when I was twelve and I was her only employee,” says forty-five-year-old Jason Grossman. “And today we’ve got 90 employees. I’ve been working alongside Andrea in every position from purchasing to company vice president since 1988 and there’s not much I don’t know about how Mrs. Grossman’s works.”

Andrea started her company working from her dining room table in Woodacre, CA. Her very first sticker was a small red heart that she designed in 1979 for the owner of Pine Street Papery, a small gift store in Sausalito.

Cutting the heart out of black paper, Andrea sent it to a label printer and requested that it be printed on flat sheets. When the boxes arrived a few weeks later, Andrea was astonished! The hearts mistakenly had been printed on rolls, like ribbon, and they were breathtaking.

Andrea was convinced that these hearts on a roll could be some kind of new product. When they hit the Sausalito store, shoppers went wild and started buying them by the yard. And that was the beginning of ‘Stickers by the Yard’ and the birth of stickers.

Although Jason will be running the company, Andrea will continue to be involved with Mrs. Grossman’s design and product development team. But after thirty years of running her own company, she is ready to explore other ventures.

 “A lot of interests are tugging at me,” says the Novato, CA resident. “I am involved with Prison Fellowship and visiting people in prisons throughout the country has changed my life. I want to do more of that. I’m on various boards serving people with severe disabilities and people in desperate need. All of these people need more help and this is something I so much want to do. I see this as an opportunity for me to be more involved in causes that really touch my heart.”

 Today Mrs. Grossman’s is housed in an 110,000 square ft. corporate headquarters with its own printing plant. The company has designed more than 2,200 different stickers and sells their products throughout the United States, Canada and Japan.    

Called “the company with a heart” Mrs. Grossman’s is the recognized leader in the sticker industry. Located in Petaluma, CA the company allows employees to bring their dogs to work, hires and celebrates the skills of developmentally challenged adults and is well known for their ‘green’ commitment to the environment winning the prestigious PG&E award for outstanding energy conservation innovations in 2005, 2006 and 2007. Over the past twenty years, Mrs. Grossman’s has donated more than fifty million stickers to children in hospitals and cancer camps all over the world.