General Info

From its humble beginnings in an Iowa garage to today's modern industrial plant in Tucson, Miles Label Co., Inc brings to mind one important word: family. When Russell Hubert Miles began running a printing operation out of his Des Moines garage in 1912, he started a family legacy that lives on nearly nine decades later. By 1930, he and his son Paul Wilson Miles, were printing labels and creating such specialty items as policy labels and business forms for insurance companies.To escape the harsh Iowa winters Paul Wilson Miles and Robert H. Miles moved the company's operations and six of its employees to Tucson in 1962. Paul W. Miles joined the firm in 1966. Miles Label Co set up shop in a downtown building near the corner of Flores Street and Stone Avenue and stayed there until 1985, when it moved to its current site in the Continental Ranch Business Park. Coincidentally, the company has always been located near a soft drink plant. "Something sweet brings good luck to the business, " says P.J. Miles, the company's secretary-treasurer, part owner, and Paul W.'s son. "Since we moved in 1962, the company's now handling 10 times the volume of business."Today, the 18 employees of Miles Label Co use many types of papers, adhesives, and films in order to manufacture labels for products ranging from cosmetics to salsa. The company also prints prescription labels and bar codes, as well as labels for weapons such as bombs and grenades for ordnance companies. Some of the company's ordnance labels bind weapons together until they are ready for use, while its grenade labels incorporate instructions on how to use them.Although most of its clients are based in Arizona, many others call on Miles Label Co.'s specialized expertise from across the United States, including 22-year customer Kimberly-Clark. According to Paul, it is the company's focus on labels that differentiates it within the diverse printing industry. "There are so many different aspects to printing, " he explains, "so we are focusing on becoming the best we can possibly be to satisfy our customers' labeling needs."A member of the Tucson Printers Association, Miles Label Co designs and typesets products using Macintosh computers equipped with state-of-the-art software. The company's equipment can produce business forms and collate up to an eight-part form, and with six color presses and a state-of-the-art platemaker, the quality of the labels is better than ever.Looking back at its strong performance in the past, Miles Label Co projects that its history of expansion will continue over the next several years. Based on the growing need for labels across a variety of business sectors, this Tucson company plans to further diversify its offerings. "Walk through a grocery store and look at how many products have labels" P.J. says. "The need is growing daily."