Clark County resident Jamie Young began a promotional products business in 2018, where she focused on selling custom drinkware, pens, bags, and apparel. When she saw a huge increase in t-shirt sales during the summer of 2020, she knew that she needed to bring things in-house to serve her client base. She shopped for her own equipment and found a local screen-printing company that closed early in the pandemic and bought their business.
Uptown Screen Printing was officially launched under Young’s leadership and in those early days, she ran it with her family’s help. Today, the Battleground-based business has four full-time employees and together, they provide screen printing, embroidery, and laser-engraved products for customers throughout the county. Growth has been significant in the last four years, and the company is currently looking to expand into a large space.
“We served 227 clients in 2020 and 740 clients in 2023,” Young said. “We increased our business 105 percent in 2021 from the previous year, 167 percent in 2022 from 2021 and an additional 33 percent in 2023 from 2022. We are so happy to have hired the BEST team; they are the heart of our business. We will be expanding our footprint and staying in Battle Ground where we plan to add additional services and more decoration options.”
Young shares that part of this success is because of her approach to customer service.
“My previous career was in advertising and marketing, and I saw early on the incredible opportunity that branded apparel and merchandise had to offer a business,” she said. “But trying to decide on what branded materials to invest in is also the most overwhelming decision for a business owner to make. Recognizing the overwhelm from my clients early on, I take the driver seat and offer a simple process of hearing what they want, make recommendations on products and decoration style that reflect their brand’s image.”
Young, who has also been named Mrs. Clark County, is set to compete for the prestigious title of Mrs. Washington America in Olympia in May of this year. If she is chosen as Mrs. Washington, she plans to use her platform to champion small businesses, shining a light on what she’s learned about the importance of shopping local.
“I applied to the Washington America Pageants to run for Mrs. Clark County to build more awareness around what made my heart beat – my community and small businesses,” she explained. “Not only has my community really shown up for me the last three years, but it has also been so beneficial for me personally to build my community through donations and volunteer hours from my business.”
No matter what, Young is excited about putting roots down as a small business owner in Clark County.
She said, “Clark County is a wonderful place to grow a business. We have so many opportunities to connect and grow. Uptown Screen Printing’s success and my success have been because of our community.”
