People Profile: Kim Granholm

Kim Granholm has a pretty good backhand and a competitive spirit.

She was named most improved player on her tennis team during her freshman year at Loras College in Dubuque, Iowa. Today, Granholm, 34, is still swinging her racket in the court and serving up a healthy dose of competition in the local business world.

Granholm, of Montgomery, owns Aurora Fastprint with her dad, Tom Bartlett, of Aurora. Along with being a small business owner, Granholm is a mom to two small children, ages one and five. She was only about three years old when her father bought the print shop, then called Big Red Quick Print.

Granholm explained that it was originally a franchise when it opened up in 1976 on Broadway in downtown Aurora. When her dad purchased the shop in 1979, he renamed it Aurora Fastprint; he later moved it to it’s current location at 54 E. Galena Blvd.

As a young girl, Granholm spent lots of time at her dad’s shop—she remembers getting paid a penny for each envelope she licked—but she never dreamed that she would one day be running it. That changed in 2001, when her father approached her about joining him at Aurora Fastprint, at what turned out to be just the right time.

She had a degree in business management from Loras and was working in the accounting department at STATS, a sports statistics company. In her words, she hated it. So she willingly accepted her dad’s offer to come on board at Aurora Fastprint and implement the digital side of the print shop, which needed to be done in order to keep up with the competition.

Granholm is still working hard to keep the shop competitive by including more social media marketing and added perks for loyal customers. Just over three years ago, Granholm started purchasing some of her dad’s shares, and she now owns about seventy-five percent of the business.

She said the ownership makes her take great pride in what she does.

“It’s a little bit nerve-wracking, but it’s nice to have my dad here," she said. "I can bounce ideas off of him. I can trust him. I value his input.”

When at home in Montgomery, where Granholm has lived for 10 years, she spends time with her kids and her husband, Jon, a sheet metal worker. One of her favorite Montgomery businesses is and she misses dining at Jason’s at Gray’s Mill. As for what she’d like to see in Montgomery, “I’d love to have a bookstore. Somewhere where I could read a book and the kids could play.”

And if you don’t see Granholm behind the counter at Aurora Fastprint, then you might catch her at the at Route 30 and Orchard Road near her home in Blackberry Crossing West. “I’m there about every other day,” she laughed.