Owner of artisan bindery Classic Bookbinders, Nita Sams has been named the Belmont Business Woman of the Year, in recognition of her 30 years serving the trade.
Sams was cheered on by a room full of peers upon accepting the award at the 23rd Belmont West Australian Small Business Awards held in Perth.
Sams completed her bookbinding apprenticeship during the 1950s in London when girls were not normally accepted into the trade.
“My mother knew a man who owned a printing company, he said he owed by mother a favour, I did not dare ask what it was but he gave me an apprenticeship,” Sams recalls.
“When we migrated to Australia I got a position, I think it might have been with Spicers. Again it was quite unusual for a woman to be a binder. They gave me a job on the bench because they said men did the binding.”
Sams went on to work with Snap and ran their finishing business while she was still in her twenties, in 1983 she started Classic Bookbinders with a friend and has continued running the business ever since.
“The industry is not so bad now probably because I have been in it for a long time. Most of the industry knows me and there are now quite a few ladies who run printing companies and binding companies,” she says.
“Females are more accepted now, although it is still a male dominated industry.”
Sams remembers having a hard time fitting in with the boys during her days at trade school, she says they often played pranks on her by stealing her tools.
“An older female member of staff could see I was upset about this so she said, ‘Listen dear I can tell you how to fix this, if you paint all the handles of your tools pink, they will never touch them again’,” explains Sams. “So I did and I never had a problem after that.”
Classic Bookbinders currently employs a staff of 10 fully-trained bookbinders and the company prides itself upon keeping quality at its core.
In 2005, the company was commissioned to produce a memorial book on Pope John Paul II by the Vatican.
Sams says, “We market the company on quality and service, people often say we are a little bit expensive, and yes we probably are, but all our work is guaranteed to be of quality.
“The industry is reasonably quiet at the moment and a lot of printers are adding in finishing to their business, which makes it difficult for the finishing houses.”
Sams says she will continue to run Classic Bookbinders as long as possible.
“A lot of people ask me if I want to retire but I am sort of a people person, I like to be with people, I still enjoy working so I am not really wanting to stay at home.”
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