- ABOUT US
- STARTING OUT
In 1987, Art Bruno based a
small, one-man cartridge remanufacturing business out of the family
garage and basement in Elk Grove Village, Illinois, called Cardinal
Cartridge & Supplies, Inc. As business gradually picked up he
recruited the services of his son and daughter, Mark & Ellen, to
place adhesive labels on SX and CX seal cards after school. When the
basement was finally filled to
capacity with empty and newly remanufactured cartridges, Art begged his wife, Elaine, to allow him to store additional cartridges in the living room. She did, but on the condition that her beige colored carpet would be spared from loose toner spills.- A NEW BEGINNING
A year later the business
out-grew the small confines of the Bruno's three bedroom townhouse and
Art rented a small 400 square foot store front in downtown Des Plaines
and hired his son Mark, nephew Philip, and brother-in-law Pat on a full
time basis to handle the extra business. Pat and Philip were in-charge
of remanufacturing cartridges, while Mark coated the OPC drums with a
third-party coating he referred to as "rat poison" because of it's
smell. Art concentrated with running the business and getting new
customers to use his cartridges. A few years later business expanded and
once again Art had to move his business to a bigger facility. Renting
office/warehouse space in the Arthur Rogers Industrial Park, Cardinal
Cartridge now had 1900 square feet to work in.
- With a larger facility and more business coming in, additional help was needed. Art hired his other nephew Michael, his wife Elaine to handle the increased office work, some sales people, and additional workers to help remanufacture the cartridges. Around that time Art began to sell supplies to other remanufacturers such as toner, seals, felt wands, and his own brand of OPC drum coating, Pro-Coat. With the new prospect of also selling these supplies, Art took over the warehouse next to him for a grand total of 6800 square feet and a total of 22 employees that included a newly acquired research and development staff to further Art's vision and goal of producing top quality drum coating products. Business went on as usual and the R&D team continued their work producing Hard-Coat, SuperHard Coat, Mega-Coat and Instant Black. Mag roller coating.
- A NEW BUSINESS WAS BORN.
As the supply
business grew rapidly due to the excellent reputation that followed
Cardinal's coating products, Art decided to sell the cartridge end of
the business so he could spend more time, energy, and resources into the
development of new, innovative, products. Thus, in January 1997,
Cardinal Imaging Supplies was created. Art took with him the services of
his son Mark, the R&D team, his daughter Ellen (who replaced Elaine
in 1993 as office manager), Ten years in the remanufacturing industry,
and Cardinal is still going strong as one of the leading manufacturers
of component coatings.
- We couldn't have done it without you!