Industry Champion

With a career dedicated to the tag and label industry, Dave McDowell, chairman of McDowell Label and Screen Printing, is honored as packagePRINTING's 2009 TLMI Converter of the Year.

The TLMI Converter of the Year membership constitutes a proud, exclusive club. Its members come from a wide variety of backgrounds, some literally cutting their teeth in a family business and others entering the industry when opportunity knocked. Although their backgrounds vary, they share a number of traits, including superior talent, an uncompromising work ethic, and a total dedication to the industry.

This year's honoree, Dave McDowell, chairman of the board of McDowell Label and Screen Printing, fits easily into this mold. TLMI Chairman Frank Gerace, president and CEO of Multi-Color Corp., says, "Dave has spent essentially his entire career in the label industry, committing his life to promoting our industry's value to its customer and supplier base. His standards and integrity are beyond reproach; he represents what is best about our industry."

Gary Smith, VP of sales for RotoMetrics, has known McDowell since 1979. "Nobody is more dedicated to the label and narrow-web industry," says Smith. "He's the best salesman I've ever been around. He's always looking for a competitive edge and is never satisfied with the status quo."

It is these qualities—high standards, integrity, and dedication to the industry and TLMI—that have earned Dave McDowell a seat in the "club" as packagePRINTING's 2009 TLMI Converter of the Year.

Getting started

McDowell is a graduate of Texas A&M University, an Aggie through and through. Early in his career while working in Kansas City, a friend asked him to interview with Avery Label, which happened to have an opening in its Dallas territory. Longing to move back to Texas, McDowell told his family he would work for any company that would move them back home, and then he would get a "real job" if need be.

As it turned out, the position at Avery Label turned out to be a real job, lasting ten years. More importantly, it provided him with solid knowledge of the tag-and-label industry—knowledge that he used to branch out on his own.

In 1981, he founded McDowell Label and Screen Printing as a broker-style company. Starting a company is always a challenge, but within the first year of business, McDowell had to deal with a divorce, along with the bankruptcy of the fledgling company's largest customer. However, relying on perseverance and salesmanship, he overcame these challenges. During the 13 years McDowell Label operated as a brokerage he counted the Dallas Cowboys and Apple Computer as two noteworthy customers.