Hagadone buys Harbor
in printing expansion

Star-Bulletin staff

Hagadone Printing Co. has acquired another big Hawaii commercial printer, Harbor Graphics & Fine Printing Inc., for an undisclosed sum in a transaction scheduled to close Nov. 1.

Harbor Graphics, which has about 40 employees at its plant on Kamehameha Highway in Kalihi, will move into the 85,000-square-foot Hagadone plant on Puuhale Road, also in Kalihi. Hagadone has about 140 employees.

Hagadone, which had been in publishing in Hawaii since the early 1960s producing the This Week tourist publications and others, became Hawaii's biggest commercial printer in 1995, when it acquired the historic Tongg Publishing Co.

Duane Hagadone, owner of Hagadone Printing, said Erwin Hudelist, who was president and chief executive officer of Harbor Graphics, has been named general manager of the combined business.

Harbor Graphics was formed in 1986.

Hagadone said the combination of skills and equipment will allow Hagadone to do more of what it has already been doing, bringing local publishers' printing work back from the mainland and elsewhere.