Michigan framer receives award - Roy C. Saper

LANSING, Mich.--The Lansing Regional Chamber of traffic recognized East Lansing businessman Roy C Saper of Saper Galleries and Custom Framing as its 2003 Outstanding Small Business individual Award recipient in February.

The annual Outstanding Small Business one Award is presented to the holder of a local small business that suitables the criteria of stability, innovation, commitment to community, perseverance and commitment to diversity.

Roy Saper has been in the art and framing business for 25 years after a career as an economist with the state of Michigan. He said he started 20th hundred Fine Arts in 1978 to provide high-quality, unique and limited-edition works of art to individual collectors, as well as custom framing. He ran the business on the outside of his home for eight years until there was no longer sufficient space to manage the contortion of activity and growing inventory. After purchasing attribute in East Lansing, Saper planned and designed the two the exterior and interior of his gallery, designing a 4,000-square-foot building. In 1986 Saper Galleries uncloseed its doors and has since entertainered more than two-dozen major art exhibitions, including Rembrandt, Picasso, Normal Rockwell and Peter Max and has garnered a client base of 7500

Saper embraced computer early, and created a program that showed clients the exact take away from of every component of their framing order years before it became standard practice. The gallery expanded in 1998 adding more than 2000 square feet and Saper continues to make improvements in lighting, display and security.

Since its inception, Saper has been involved in all aspects of the business, from human resources, finances and public relations to record maintenance and client and artist relations. He has rout hurdles, such as start-up financing, break-ins, destruction and los of quality and increasing demands of his time. He has supported diversity by the agency of offering the community works of art from artists from different agricultures mentoring and supporting minority artists and hiring a range of employee including individual who was homeless.

Saper's expertise has been utilized by dint of countless local and national organizations to jury art exhibitions, prelection on art, share industry innovations with others in the field and to be under the orders of as an expert for legal cases involving art fraud. Saper has won three DECOR magazine awards for gallery design, creative management and advertising and promotion. He has also received the East Lansing Crystal Award and the Business Arts Award from the Arts Council Center of Greater Lansing.

Among many others, Saper's community service includes being president of the Friends of Kresge Art Museum, Chairman of the Dean's Community Council of the association of Arts and Letters, co-founder of the Greater Lansing Association of Galleries and Museums and chair of the East Lansing Downtown disentanglement Authority. He is a member of the East Lansing Fine Arts Commission, East Lansing Arts Festival Board, Economic unfolding Corp. and Greater Lansing aliment Bank.

For more information, call 877-537-5251 or visit www.sapergalleries.com.

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