Consumer >> CEO Interviews >> April 26, 2004
BLAIR BREWSTER is President of Electromark and Chairman of
XpressMyself.com, two privately held companies that have prospered by
presenting their customers with tech-innovative services and solutions
evolving from traditional products and conventional business/back-office
functions. He is also partner in two other security/safety joint
ventures that address first aid products (Eureka, UK) and personalized
ID cards (EZIdentification). Mr. Brewster's flagship firm is
Electromark, a security/safety tag, label and sign producer that he grew
from six employees and under a $600,000 in sales in 1983, to over 130
employees and $11 million in sales in 2003. Mr. Brewster is Chairman of
the ANSI Committee on Safety Tags and Tapes. More recently, Mr. Brewster
built XpressMyself, a 'Webware' solutions provider delivering an on-line
product spectrum from printing/publishing to signage to DIY services to
e-commerce suites. In 1975, while still at Williams College, Mr.
Brewster started in the 'publishing' business with an unusual medium, T-
shirts. Cashing out'for the first time'he traveled the world and then
sought more formal business training and received an MBA from Stanford
Business School in 1980. From there, it was Merrill Lynch M&A on Wall
Street, graduating to his first acquisition for his own account,
Electromark, in 1983. Much like the computer environments by which he
has prospered, Mr. Brewster has regularly cross-linked business and tech
opportunities in parallel with Electromark. In 1999, he cashed out of
another such venture, Bear Rock, when it was sold to Avery and those
proceeds helped fund XpressMyself. Profile
then an overview of recent events?
Mr. Brewster: We're actually a group, now, of several companies, all
sharing common
