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Choosing “Commitment” as Its Brand Identity, Lofton Label Regroups and Succeeds

Lofton Label targets its vertical markets with care and serves its customers with scrupulous attention to detail. In this company profile, CEO Mike Lane talks about how he developed the objectives and implemented the strategy that turned the business around.

Tuesday, August 19, 2014

Mike Lane, CEO, Lofton Label

During 27 years in executive management at Cargill, the agribusiness giant, Mike Lane learned to appreciate the bootstrapping power of focus and commitment in corporate strategy. Today, as CEO of Lofton Label, he’s applying those virtues on a smaller but no less significant scale as he positions the label and packaging company for growth in carefully selected cross-section of product markets.

Located in Inver Grove Heights, MN, a suburb of St. Paul, Lofton Label is a flexographic and digital printer of labels and flexible packaging with annual sales of $20 million and a workforce of about 100 employees. When Lane, who is also an author and an inspirational speaker, took over the 33-year old company in 2010, it was reeling from the loss of a major client and struggling with other challenges to survival in the highly fragmented, highly competitive label industry.


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About Patrick Henry

Patrick Henry is a journalist and an educator who has covered the graphic communications industry since 1984. The author of many hundreds of articles on business trends and technological developments in graphic communications, he has been published in most of the leading trade media in the field. He also has taught graphic communications as an adjunct lecturer for New York University and New York City College of Technology. The holder of numerous awards for industry service and education, Henry is currently the managing director of Liberty or Death Communications, a content consultancy.

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