Our History

Specialty Screen Printing is a family business and the history of the company is intertwined with the story of Ken and Linda Johnson and their family. It starts in a San Francisco restaurant, where Ken and Linda met in the late 70s. Linda was the lady in charge and Ken quickly became the top cook. The recipe worked and the couple married in 1978.

Ken soon left the restaurant business to begin his career in the Silicon Valley area, printing circuit boards for a manufacturer who supplied test boards for a couple of rapidly growing semiconductor companies – Intel and AMD. Linda saw the opportunity and began work in quality control with another electronics manufacturer. Her company printed the circuit boards for the first Apple MacIntosh computer.

By the late 1980s, the family included two kids, Deana and David, and the couple was tiring of life in the “wall-to-wall” city. Ken’s family had tried to make it in Oregon in the 60’s but had to return to the Bay area for work. Ken and Linda moved north from the Silicon Valley to the  Applegate Valley, near Medford, where  Ken started his first business in 1989. With the new company, Silk Screen Images, Ken took the expertise that he had gained in the tech world and applied it to new and more colorful screen printing applications for both marketing and industrial clients.

Silk Screen Images grew steadily, picking up new local customers and a variety of work that included posters, decals, and advertising materials for the local radio stations. Some of the work for the radio station was done in trade for air time, a strategy that paid off for Ken and his new venture. One of Ken’s radio ads caught the ear of a rep for U.S. Tobacco Marketing, the company that produced Skoal and Copenhagen tobacco. In those days, the tobacco companies had almost unrestricted advertising budgets, and U.S. Tobacco became a key account for the growing business.

The business continued to expand, moving in 1997 from a small facility near Ken’s house to a larger location in downtown Medford. With a more visible profile, business increased and Silk Screen Images took on another large account – a manufacturer of scanners with a contract for thousands of printed glass plates for their equipment.

All businesses face challenges, but the failure of the scanner manufacturer ultimately brought an end to Silk Screen Images. Ken merged with a competitor, but the partnership soon dissolved, and Ken took work at a local Medford company for a couple of years.

In 2004, Ken and Linda moved north again, this time to Portland where Ken took a position with a local company that had an in-house screen printing department for industrial components. Settled into their new location, the couple began thinking about a new business. Before the year was over, they founded K & L Enterprises, dba Specialty Screen Printing.

When they’re not working in the shop or with their clients, Ken and Linda enjoy the small town lifestyle. They enjoy the outdoors and long walks with their Pug, Rocky. Ken and Linda share the cooking and house duties, but he’s learning to fly a drone in his spare time.