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American Red Cross to Honor Kent State Student and Alumnus for Courageous Acts
The American Red Cross of Summit and Portage counties will honor Kent State student Eric Johnston, 21, Kent State alumnus Jared Atkins, 23, and University of Akron alumnus Paul Marschik, 24, for acts of bravery that saved lives.
Kent State University Selects Preferred Promotional Products and Apparel Supplier
Posted March 12, 2012 | Foluke OmosunKent State’s Procurement Department has appointed AG PrintPromo Solutions as the university’s preferred promotional products’ vendor. AG PrintPromo Solutions, a minority-owned business, was started in 1996 and has more than 800,000 promotional products, including an online store and a showroom where clients can view products before making purchases.
“By selecting an exclusive promotional products’ vendor, our intent is to establish one point of contact for all promotional spend in order to obtain the maximum efficiencies in cost and quality,” says Janet Schramm, senior procurement agent in Kent State’s Procurement Department. “We can easily achieve this by consolidating our entire market basket of promotional products with AG PrintPromo Solutions.”
Representatives from the Alumni Association, the Department of Intercollegiate Athletics, the Division of Diversity and Inclusion, the Procurement Department and University Communications and Marketing oversaw the selection process. The evaluation committee reviewed the proposals of 12 suppliers before opting for AG PrintPromo Solutions.
“AG PrintPromo Solutions offered the best overall value to the university in terms of product cost, quality of product offering, and marketing and promotional support,” says Schramm. “AG PrintPromo Solutions offers a variety of top-quality promotional products designed to support all university user requirements.”
AG PrintPromo Solutions has won several awards, including the Most Valuable Diverse Business Partner by the Cleveland Indians, Top 100 Diverse Businesses in Ohio for six consecutive years by www.diversitybusiness.com, and more recently, the 2012 NEO Success Award by Inside Business magazine.
“We are honored to be the marketing partners for Kent State University,” says Anup Gupta, owner of AG PrintPromo Solutions. “We look forward to working closely with the university staff on their marketing and apparel needs, and we hope to strengthen this relationship in the years ahead.”
According to Gupta, the differentiating factor between his company and others is the personalized services that they offer, as well as a team of experienced graphic designers who take time to understand the project and offer suggestions on making an ordinary product extraordinary.
“We take the time to get to know our customers, their needs, the target market that they are trying to reach, their marketing or promotion goal, their budget for the event, and other variables,” Gupta says. “Then we come to them with ideas and solutions to help them achieve those goals. If our designers feel a certain graphic will not print well, depending on the surface of the material, imprint size, imprint method, they would guide the customer and make sure they are happy with the end result. That’s what Kent State can expect from AG PrintPromo Solutions.”
AG PrintPromo Solutions’ entire product offering will be listed on the SciQuest site, Kent State’s material management system, which eases up the process for placement of orders. Kent State’s Procurement Department will hold an informational/training session in the future for those who want to familiarize themselves with SciQuest and the inventory tool process.
AG PrintPromo Solutions’ showroom is located at 960 Graham Rd., Ste. 1, in Cuyahoga Falls.
For more information about AG PrintPromo Solutions, contact Gupta at agupta@theaggroup.com, call 330-315-9600, or visit www.theaggroup.com. For questions about the procurement process, contact Schramm at jvacula@kent.edu or 330-672-9193.