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Thirty-five years of helping Auburn businesses grow. We started as a printing-only shop and grew into a full set of modern marketing tools — without losing the part that made it work in the first place.
Who we are
That is how long Advantage has been helping its clients grow their businesses. We started out doing printing and nothing else, and over time added the rest of what a business actually needs to get noticed.
Advantage continues to thrive because we give each client the best service we can — getting to know what you need and what you are trying to accomplish. People matter to us. That is not a slogan; it is the reason customers have stayed with us for decades.
Our business, whether it is printing or marketing, is about finding the best ways to reach people. We use a combination of good design, printed materials, mailings, email campaigns, promotional products and honest advice about which of those you actually need.
Our story
There is a good story behind Advantage. It involves getting asked to leave a foreign country, falling in love, and finding the way back to a hometown to start a business.
In 1982, founder Dean Wood finished a degree in economics and joined the Peace Corps, hoping to help a small country develop by creating good jobs for locals. He did exactly that in the Dominican Republic, working on Bonarte, a pottery-making project in Bonao. After the United States invaded neighbouring Grenada, Dean stood in front of the US Embassy in Santo Domingo to protest the invasion — and was asked to return home.
He came back to California and went to work for Hewlett-Packard, then listed among the best-managed companies in the world. The plan was to learn good management and return to a developing country to grow businesses and employment. After five years at HP, Dean concluded that really learning to run a business well meant doing it at a scale rather smaller than one of the largest corporations on earth.
So he and his wife Doreen moved back to Auburn to start a print shop and serve the community here. Six kids followed. Dean never did make it back to a developing country — but he has spent three decades keeping Auburn a thriving town by supporting its businesses, its public agencies and the non-profits that serve the community.
Our people
When you call Advantage, you get a person who knows your job — not a queue.
Founder & Owner
Part of something bigger
Advantage is now part of the Sierra family of printing and office companies, alongside 49er Printing and Country Copy. The name on the door has not changed, and neither has who answers the phone — but there is more capacity behind it now: larger print runs, office supply, furniture and janitorial, all available through the same people you already work with.
So let’s dig in and find some results. Tell us what you are working on.