Jamie Young, owner of Uptown Screen Printing, never imagined starting her own printing business as a hobby would lead her to an industry award.
In 2018, Young was a promotional products distributor, connecting clients with businesses to make T-shirts and other promotional items.
Everything changed in the summer of 2020 when she received a huge influx of T-shirt orders and suggested to her husband that they begin looking into the business model.
“The time from idea, to leasing a space, to buying equipment was less than a week,” Young said.
The business’s first location opened near the Battle Ground Wilco in a 1,000-square-foot space that Young found difficult to fill.
“There were weeks where we never turned the machines on. I was a one-girl show,” Young said.
Within the first three months, business grew enough for Young to hire help.
“Three months later, we had to hire a third person. Like, at that point in our business, every time we hired, we grew more,” Young said.
Young said hiring someone was one of the scariest things she had ever done. She did not know if she would be able to keep the commitment to that person.
“‘What if I hire somebody and in two weeks, we don’t have enough business to pay that person?’ But the business always came,” Young said.
Since that first year, the space and the company have continued to grow, with Young bringing in several employees, including a graphic designer.
During these early years, Young was still working a day job doing advertising, marketing and hospitality, a job she said she loved doing.
“This little side gig, selling these custom products at nights and on weekends, had generated over the first year enough income where I had to actually choose to keep my day job or keep the thing that was the hobby,” Young said.
The two occupations were not all that different, but one detail made the decision clearer for Young.
“What helped me make the decision is my daughter was a 10-month-old and I was commuting to Portland an hour and a half in the morning and an hour and a half at night,” Young said. “That’s three hours a day I don’t get to spend with my daughter.”
Choosing the path of self-employment has since yielded results she never expected.
“I remember back in the day dreaming of ‘what if I could have half a million dollars’ and in a year reached that very quickly,” Young said.
She then set her goal higher, believing doubling that number would be far away, but in 2024, Uptown Screen Printing generated $1 million in revenue.
Her success in the field over the last several years led to her being one of the six recipients of the 2026 Women in Screen Printing Award.
“It’s a worldwide event that anyone who has anything to do with print, goes to Vegas,” Young said. “I won and I’m like the new kid on the block, we’ve been in business for six years so it was such an honor.”
According to Screen Print magazine, the organization responsible for the award, the award is meant to honor women leaders in the printing industry, and only six can win it every year.
The winners are women who have “spurred business growth, improved their communities and enhanced the screen printing industry” through their careers in the business.
Young was not able to receive the award in person due to scheduling conflicts with family and work responsibilities, but she expressed her gratitude for the recognition.
“If you have the desire to get started, you’ve just got to put one foot in front of the other,” Young said. “Don’t compare your year one to someone’s year 10. You’ve got to take those baby steps and be proud of where you’re at.”
