Bill Holland joined the staff at Great Copier Service Co. last week in order to reorganize its sales force.

Great Copier owner Dan Haack said he hopes to have Holland shape up the sales department so the company will have an even stronger local presence. Although Great Copier has a salesman who works out of Sterling, it will be nice to have a local sales person.

Holland's background with the public and business should make a good marriage with the products Great Copier has to sell, Haack said.

“I like to be out and about,” said Holland, a former publisher of The Fort Morgan Times. “I like to meet people.”

Fort Morgan is the headquarters of Great Copier's territory, which allows it to be in the center of the business in Northeast Colorado, Haack said.

Service for machines is crucial for copier services, since people depend on the various abilities the machines offer, Holland said. Having Fort Morgan as a base allows Great Copier to respond quickly to customer needs in the region.

The business has three fully-certified technicians, and is looking to hire another soon, Haack said. Great Copier is a fully-authorized dealer for Lanier and Kyocera copiers.

The copier business is probably more complex than most people might think, Holland said. Machines today have far more features than in the past. Not only do they offer copying and stapling, they can also scan documents or work with e-mail.

These kinds of features increase productivity for businesses, Holland said. Like telephones, there are copiers in virtually every business and they depend on them.

“You can't function today without them,” he said.

Haack said he is seeing quite a bit more interest in color copiers as the quality goes up and the cost of copies has gone down. Prices for color copiers are now competitive with black and white, and color copiers' laser printing capability equals anything on the market.

The kinds of vivid colors business-level machines can offer used to only be available in commercial-grade machines, he said. In five or six years black and white copiers probably won't even be sold any more.

Haack said his company enjoyed another strong year in 2009, despite a slow period in the first six months. The last half of the year more than made up for that, with sales higher than the previous 18 months combined.

“We've never been busier,” he said.

Great Copier was founded in 1991, and Haack bought the firm in 2002.

Haack came to Fort Morgan after 12 years serving as the president of a commercial furniture and interior design company, but he had roots in eastern Colorado.

His grandfather, Bud Fox, was a founder of the Fox Brothers Ranch near Idalia, a place where he spent a lot of time in his youth.

Holland also came to Fort Morgan in 2002 to work for The Times, having worked as a publisher and advertising manager in Iowa and Nebraska before that. He left The Times last year.