“You just pick up and keep on going, that’s what it is in life,” Bonnie Voropaeff, owner of DLG Printing told BenitoLink.
That’s exactly what she did after a July 12 fire destroyed her business location in downtown Hollister. Voropaeff and her husband moved the operation to their 5,000-square-foot property and got to work. Three other businesses were also affected, including Su Casita Multiservicios which has since found a new location in town.
“For us it is business at home, so we keep on going,” Voropaeff said, adding that they are using an in-law unit and about a third of their garage for printing operations.
Almost immediately after the fire, Voropaeff set out to replace equipment lost in the fire, which included printers, computers and software. She said they invested about $15,000 in new equipment. Voropaeff was only able to salvage four file cabinets containing customer information from the burned out location on San Benito Street.
It took a week to set up shop at home and restart her work, Voropaeff said, which included drying the soaking wet files and contacting customers. DLG Printing also hired a company to retrieve data from her computers, which were unusable.
“We had things backed up on a secondary system, but we didn’t have them backed up in the cloud,” Voropaeff said. “We do now.”
Her San Benito Street building might take some time to reconstruct, Voropaeff said, and she would like to return to the site she has been in since 1989. Until then, she is looking for another space downtown.
DLG, which stands for Design Line and Granger as a nod to the name of the business before Voropaeff took over (Granger Printing), moved to 435 San Benito Street on Oct. 17, 1989, the day of the Loma Prieta Earthquake.
“Memorable day,” Voropaeff said.
Following the July 12 fire, Voropaeff received calls and texts of support from the community, one of the main reasons she moved to Hollister from Santa Clara County. She said a friend kept praising Hollister’s community environment. Determined to see for herself, she drove down Highway 101 every three or four months for two years. She opted to leave her marketing business of 20 years to move to Hollister.
“He was right, Hollister is the place that you want to settle, raise your kids and have a business because the people in our city, in our county, are awesome,” she said.
Whether from home or in another building downtown in the near future, Voropaeff said DLG Printing is definitely up and running.
“All I’m asking is that people don’t forget us,” she said. “You might not see us as often as you would have before, but we’re here.”
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