The Washington Way

When DJ and Judi Brown started their business in 2006, they were a small operation that used a foil press to personalize small items like napkins, ribbons and cards. Bit by bit, their business—which was called Getting Personal Imprinting at the time—grew as they added services, such as applying photos to porcelain, mugs and other items.

The Washington Way

Judi Brown talks about the journey that led Tacoma Trophy to winning APA’s Large Retailer of the Year award.

By: Myrna Traylor

(Originally printed in the July/August 2023 issue of Insights.)

To market their products, they participated in fairs and festivals in the area where they lived, which is just north of Seattle. In the process, they made a connection that got them a vending spot south of Seattle, at Joint Base Lewis-McChord. Military personnel from the base and other customers liked the Browns’ work but kept asking for other services, such as engraving and imprinting on other items.

“We were beginning to wonder what the other local trophy shops were doing or not doing from a marketing standpoint that so many people seemed to be asking where they could get that kind of work done,” recalls Judi Brown. “So, in 2007, we moved from up north of Seattle down here to Pierce County.”

It was also about that time that the Browns decided to buy their first laser engraver. “That was when the whole world of trophies and plaques opened up,” says Judi. And when it came time to rename their venture, Brown says she was “shocked” to find that none of the local trophy shops in the area were using the name “Tacoma Trophy” in any way. “With that being the biggest community in the county, and from the standpoint of online search and SEO and all that, we said we’re just going to start operating as Tacoma Trophy.”

Tacoma Trophy opened its current storefront not far from the military base where it had generated so much business in its early years.

The business moved locations a few times in the early years but opened its current storefront not far from the military base where Tacoma Trophy had generated so much business years earlier. “My husband is retired Navy, and the base we are close to here is a joint base—Air Force and Army. But we know the military community, and even when we were just doing the foil and printed stuff, we knew the types of events and activities that the military community celebrated, so the military has always been a focus for us,” Brown explains.

Brown says that they have, of course, cultivated other customers beyond their military clients. “We work with a lot of individual team moms and dads, and with the smaller leagues. Honestly, we don’t have strong and deep connections with the local school districts, although we do know some of the coaches and athletic directors at the various schools, and they come to us for their trophies and such. So, it’s a wide mix of clientele that we work with.”

The store also works with fire departments and police departments, providing items with company or unit logos and personalization. “It just becomes something fun and a way to promote camaraderie in work groups or other organizations,” says Brown.

R&D

Tacoma Trophy has 12 employees who have been with the company for anywhere from nine months to seven years. “A couple of our employees left for one reason or another and then came back—so, we have a few boomerang employees,” says Brown. “And one student who joined us as an intern last fall—we hired her on. She’s the newbie of the bunch.” Between crafting and handling retail operations, the team stays very busy.

Tacoma Trophy does a lot of laser engraving, Brown says. “We engrave a lot of plastic and wood for custom plaques. We start with just a plain sheet of wood and laser out what needs to be lasered, and then we paint or stain and reassemble the components to create custom plaques.” They also use laser engraving for leatherette items and drinkware, like Polar Camel tumblers. They rely on industry suppliers for most laserable substrates.

“Our laser is our workhorse. We have two laser engravers,” Brown says. “We also have a diamond drag engraver for some of the metal engraving that people bring in, like coins or other kinds of medals that were designed to have personalization put in a certain area. We also do sandblasting for deep, deep etching. We recently did a big project where we used the sandblaster on paving stones for a new veteran’s memorial in one of the nearby communities.”

The shop also performs glass etching, sublimation and uses a UV printer for all sorts of applications.

In the awards and personalization business, one has to marry craft and creativity, and that creativity can come from unexpected places. “We have often looked at our military customers as kind of our research and development department,” Brown says. “They will come in and pose an idea to us and say, ‘Hey, can you create a plaque that looks like this?’ or ‘We have this item; can you mount it or attach it to something?’ We’ve always been small enough so that we’re willing to give it a shot and see what happens. Sometimes the ideas work, and we’re able to then expand on them and offer them to people even outside of the military. Other times we try things, and either it’s too time-consuming, or it’s just not something we would want to do more than once.”

Inside Tacoma's shop, which engraves a lot of plastic and wood for custom plaques.

While her team handles the production and retail sales, Brown takes charge of the marketing and networking. She is a member of five chambers of commerce, several local trade associations and attends networking activities every week. “On occasion, we will sponsor certain nonprofit fundraising events or donate to things like that to try to get a little bit more name exposure out there in the community. We work hard to make sure that people know where we are, who we are and what our capabilities are. Word of mouth is really what we have relied on since day one to promote our business.”

Going for Gold

Even though Judi had submitted their company for the annual Retailer of the Year award, she and DJ didn’t know that they had won until the night the award was presented in Las Vegas. “That was just so thrilling. I can’t even describe what it meant to us to get that kind of recognition from others in the industry. To us, it means that this time and effort that we’ve been putting into building our little business here was getting noticed and that maybe we were doing something right! It just means a lot.”

DJ and Judi Brown

As for their plans for the immediate future, Brown is optimistic. “I don’t know that we’re adding any more equipment simply because we don’t have the space here. We hope to just become better and more proficient with the tools that we have. What we were most excited to see at the Expo, though, was the introduction of the direct-to-film application that we can use with the UV printer to decorate items with full-color imagery. We have only begun to experiment a little bit with that, but we’re excited about the possibilities.”