A company that placed its mark on countless businesses in Central Alberta and beyond has been forced to close.
A notice posted at the No. 9, 7429 49th Ave. premises of Mr. Sign of Red Deer Ltd. advises that the company is bankrupt. A message on its answering machine states operations there ceased on Tuesday and that customers with pending orders could expect a call within days.
Owner Antonio Delcaro could not be reached for comment, but former owner and founder Morley Spelman said Delcaro called him with the news on Monday.
“I don’t know what went wrong,” said Spelman, adding that the business had scaled back during the economic downturn.
Although he sold Mr. Sign to Delcaro in 1999, Spelman owns the building in which it operated. He said he’d been notified by bankruptcy trustee Alger & Associates that it plans to liquidate the business’s assets.
Mr. Sign’s website says the business employs 16, but Spelman said the number had declined by about two-thirds.
Spelman’s father Harry founded Spelman Signs — which still operates in Red Deer — in 1952. The younger Spelman joined the business in 1955, and remained there after his father retired in 1969.
He left in 1978 and eight years later started Mr. Sign.
“I tried a few other things and I think I just decided I belonged doing signs. So I went back to it.”
Spelman intended to operate with a partner named Rick, with the Mr. Sign name derived from the first letter of each man’s first name.
“He bailed before I even started.
“Somebody told him that we’d never make it.”
That pessimistic prediction proved wrong, and Mr. Sign grew from a one-man operation to a thriving business. One of Spelman’s employees was Delcaro.
“I think he was 17 when he came to work for me.”
When he sold the business, Spelman retained its industrial engraving component. He continued to do that work on a part-time basis for about five years.
“And I did a little selling for Tony, and stuff like that,” he said. “So I was around there a bit.”
Spelman recalled how, during his years in the industry, sign-making progressed from wielding a paintbrush to punching a keyboard. Computerization “exploded” after Mr. Sign started, he said.
hrichards@www.reddeeradvocate.com