U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal joined representatives from the SBA, CBIA, West Hartford Chamber of Commerce, and the town to honor Cricket Press, which has been named the Family-Owned Small Business of the Year.

By Ronni Newton

Small Business Administration District Director Catherine Marx joked Monday that now there’s another generation of the Confessore family already preparing to join the business, noting that when Greg Confessore was first recognized as the winner of the SBA’s “Jeffrey Butland Family-Owned Small Business of the Year” award at an event in Branford in May, he and his wife, Brittany, were expecting their first child.

On Monday morning, 2-month-old Indie slept in her mom’s arms while Marx, U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, and representatives from the Connecticut Business & Industry Association (CBIA), the Town of West Hartford, and the West Hartford Chamber of Commerce praised Cricket Press for receiving the honor and for their contributions to the community and success as a generational business.

“National Small Business Week is more than just a date on a calendar,” Marx said. “It’s a date to highlight our small businesses here in Connecticut and a family-run business, like Cricket Press, that has been at the cornerstone of so many corners in West Hartford.” She thanked Confessore, and Cricket Press, for creating jobs and supporting the economy, and providing services to other businesses, large and small.

Blumenthal said he was sorry to have missed the award ceremony in May due to the Senate being in session, but honored to celebrate “a great business story” on Monday morning, and to present Confessore with a certificate of special recognition from the U.S. Senate.

While Cricket Press – a West Hartford-based professional printing company with eight employees that prints a wide variety of items ranging from business cards, to brochures, to yard signs and banners – may be small compared to a Fortune 500 company, “it has as much meaning as any of the biggest corporations in America to the people who are served by this wonderful endeavor,” Blumenthal said, noting that he had been impressed by what he had read about Confessore’s dad, Tim, “and about his dedication to this business and the community here.” Tim’s vision went far beyond just printing, as does Greg’s, Blumenthal said.

“Printing has been dismissed as kind of the old stuff, antiquated, obsolete … but printing has a real future. You’re committed to it and you have adapted this business to the digital age,” Blumenthal said. “The history of this company is truly impressive, but it has a real future as well as a history. And that’s because of your leadership, because you have seen the future, you know that printing is part of our future. It has to remain part of our future.”

Cricket Press was founded in 1971 by West Hartford resident Bill Teasdale. In 1987, at the age of 26, Tim Confessore took over the role of president of Cricket Press from Teasdale, who continued to work there until 2013. Teasdale passed away in October 2016 at the age of 88. Tim Confessore died of an aggressive cancer in 2017, when he was just 55 years old.

Cricket Press was originally located on LaSalle Road and moved to 19 Sedgwick Road in 1984. In May 2010, Cricket Press moved to its current and much-more-spacious location at 236 Park Road, next to A.C. Petersen Farms.

Shortly after his father’s death, Greg, who had graduated from Wentworth Institute of Technology in 2016 with an engineering degree, made the decision to take over the family business.

“Family is really the foundation of the business,” Greg Confessore said Monday. Many of the employees who still work there today have been part of the Cricket Press family for decades – some even longer than he has been alive. “They really are the foundation of the true roots of what our business is all about. They’re like family to me still, they were like family to my dad, they’ve been here 30 and 40 years,” he said.

The long-time employees have seen the changes from the early days to today, Confessore said, and are eager to understand how the industry continues to change. “And we all jokingly say print’s not dying, it’s changing, it’s changing every single day. And we as a team continue to commit towards figuring out what does that future look like.”

Confessore said he’s often asked, “What’s your secret?” His response: “It’s not really a secret. The secret is who everybody deals with on a daily basis. It’s our guys. Plain and simple.”

The SBA’s Jeffrey Butland Family-Owned Small Business of the Year award recognizes businesses that demonstrate success, community engagement, and a strong foundation for long-term growth. Cricket Press was nominated by SBA business advisor Denise Whitford.

“He just struck me as one of those clients that has not just his act together but he takes a sincere interest in his community, and especially in his family here at work and at home,” Whitford said Monday. As an advisor looking to assist with the challenges Confessore is facing, she said, the focus has been not on the negative but rather on “where is he going to go from here” while maintaining the legacy of being a family business.

“The critical service is what you provide to the community and the businesses. I’m really looking forward to seeing you grow to the next generation, and helping Indie and the next generation after that,” Whitford said, looking ahead to opportunities in the business-to-business and government arena, and globally. “You’re an innovator. You think of things in terms of here we are, but where can be go,” she added.

CBIA sponsors the SBA’s Connecticut Small Business Week, and VP of Communications Joe Budd said that more than nine in 10 businesses in the state are small businesses. “They’re the heart and soul of the economy,” he said, congratulating Confessore and Cricket Press.

West Hartford Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Chris Conway added congratulations on behalf of the chamber as well. “The words that were used a bunch of times were community, and it literally comes out of the walls here because when you walk in and you see the orders for people, it’s so many community organizations, your fellow local businesses that you’re supporting.”

But Conway also shared an anecdote after hearing a Cricket employee preparing an order for someone in Pittsburgh, who uses Cricket Press because he likes the specific way they do the job for him. “So that just speaks a lot, that they had so many options but they looked to you guys.”

West Hartford Economic Development Coordinator Kristen Gorski said she is so proud of Confessore for receiving this honor. “You work so, so hard within the business. Every time I come in your team is really welcoming and you see how hard they work. Small business is the backbone of the community, and that’s your expectation … you want to support the community, you want to support your family and your business.”

Gorski added that whenever she visits Cricket Press it seems like something has been updated, because they continue to modernize. “You’re buying new equipment. You really want to move the needle and move the ball foward and it’s really evident in everything that you do. And I’m just so very proud of you. Congratulations,” she said.

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