RIP Gary P Rowley

Gary Paul Rowley, former owner of Rowley-Scher Reprographics, Inc., passed away on November 17th, 2021. Gary was 87 years old. His wife, Marilyn, passed away in 2017. Sincere condolences to the Rowley family on Gary’s passing. Gary’s first reprographics company was Rowley’s Blueprint Service (RBS), which was located in Silver Hill, Md. RBS was established in 1959. After selling RBS, Gary worked in sales for Technifax Corp; Gary held that position for six years. Gary then started Expedite Blueprint Service (in downtown Washington, DC) as a division/subsidiary of Expedite Printing Service. After the terms of his business arrangement were not met by his partner in Expedite, Gary left and purchased The Sepia Shop, which was also located in downtown Washington, D.C. Gary immediately changed the name of The Sepia Shop to Rowley’s Blueprint Service. In 1979, Gary merged his company with Max Scher Blueprint (the latter company was owned by John Scher Zeller), and the name of the company was changed to Rowley-Scher Reprographics. While Gary was CEO of Rowley-Scher, the company completed other mergers and acquisitions, including Allied Reproduction Service, Heller Reproductions, and A&E Blueprinters. At the time Gary retired from Rowley-Scher (early 1984), Rowley-Scher, then operating multiple locations in the Greater Washington/Baltimore Common Market Area, was the largest reprographics enterprise in the Wash/Balt Common Market Area and one of the largest reprographics enterprises in the United States. Gary was very active in MiniMAX, an association of reprographers specializing in overlay “pin-graphics”. MiniMAX was founded by Jack Cushing of Cushing & Co. in Chicago. (Years later, MiniMAX was merged into ReproCAD to form ReproMAX; the latter is now known as RMAX Network.) Gary was friends with reprographers all across the United States. Gary was a guiding light to all who worked with him, and a genius when it came to Sales & Marketing and Market Strategy. Personal note: I had the pleasure of being one of Gary’s partners in Rowley-Scher. Our other partners were John Scher Zeller and Rich Heller. All of my partners had a major impact on my development, and I am truly blessed to have been associated with them. The last time I saw Gary was in 2013, when we got together for lunch in Bradenton, FL. Gary had a wonderful sense of humor; I remember him saying, with a twinkle in his eye, “I’d order a bowl of soup, but most of it would end up on the tablecloth; Parkinson’s Disease is not fun.”….. Joel Salus, Publisher of Reprographics 101. Photo of Gary P Rowley and John Scher Zeller; taken in 1979 at the time that Rowley's Bluepring and Max Scher Blueprint merged to form Rowley-scher Reprographics, Inc.