My career began during the years 1978. As Service Manager with Minolta Copiers for four years, I amassed a vast core of knowledge in Imaging Technologies. This was an industry in its infancy in the late 70’s. Copiers with new technology needed fixing, and even the manufacturer was periodically unable to help with solutions. While in the field, sometimes with much trial and error, I helped grow the service knowledge base to include engineering solutions that were previously unknown. Some newly engineered parts and service solutions were created because of my creativity and diligence in conjunction with other pioneering technicians.
Over the next decade, I strived to excel at marketing imaging products to a wide variety of businesses with products from companies including: Toshiba, Ricoh, Canon and IBM.
While working with Canon products in 1990 and 1991, I began to notice a pattern of complaints from customers about the cost of the disposable toner cartridges and the waste of throwing away something so costly. They questioned why they couldn’t simply put more toner in a perfectly good working cartridge. I started researching the idea and began to create and fabricate replacements for worn out parts on used units. I shared my ideas with the purchasing department of Community Hospital in Monterey. The director of purchasing challenged me: if I accomplished my goal he would award me the hospital’s laser cartridge business. After several successful trials performed by the I.T. Department of the hospital, I was awarded their business.
Within a year, I had perfected the cartridge recycling process. The remanufactured toner cartridges that I developed not only functioned equally as well as new OEM units, but lasted 20-30% longer at a substantial 20-30% savings in cost to my customers.
I started American Performance Cartridge, or APC for short, in 1992.
During this time period, when local copier and printer dealers were discouraging their customer base against using our products, we prevailed and became one of the first Green Recycling businesses in Monterey County. The cartridge recycling industry has grown to a level that is now widely accepted; its popularity has now forced other local dealers to follow my lead in the pursuit of recycled cartridge sales. They were forced into becoming Green by their customers, or be left behind.
As APC grew, our service department team members were continuously being factory trained and certified into highly skilled technicians. We started selling new and refurbished document equipment, copiers, scanners, printers, etc. We are a vendor neutral company, with loyalty to no one specific manufacturer. Our only loyalty lies with our customers; we aim to provide the best possible solution from whichever product most perfectly suits their needs.
In order to portray our dedication to the future of office technology, in 2007 we changed our name to Docutec, which represents Document Technologies.
We look forward to serving all your printer and copier needs!
Chris Harrison
Owner and Founder of DocuTec
