Business owner is queen of the screen scene

Her business of 18 years, Kola's Screen Graphics, can have the same logo placed on dress shirts, ties, ball caps, coffee mugs, pens, binders, decals, notebooks and underwear.

Lasagna noodles. Tortillas. Anything.

"It's not a dragging job. Here, you have a chance at doing something so different every day," Janoff said.

Janoff doesn't actually run the screening machines. She has a staff of about nine full-time employees, including an in-house artist and graphics designer. She and other staff members attend trade shows every year in search of new marketing strategies, not to mention new doodads and thingamabobs onto which she can screen logos.

Janoff helped a friend move here from Oregon and decided to stay. Previously, she worked at restaurants in Hawaii for a few years and spent a year in London. She didn't enjoy a brief run here as a real-estate agent.

Janoff worked for about five years in the screen printing department of an offset printing company that eventually closed in 1988. Her husband of almost 20 years, Ron Janoff, encouraged her to start her own company. A former boss "practically gave away" a single, manually operated screening press and a heater, which is used to dry resin in the printing process. That cost about $2,000, a steal at the time.

Kola Screen Graphic's first office was about 2,000 square feet Downtown. About nine years ago, Janoff moved to an 8,000-square-foot facility near North Campbell Avenue and East Broadway. She's also invested in two automatic embroidery machines and an eight-color printing press. Each costs about $50,000 new.

Janoff prides herself on trying to meet customers' specific needs. And her business's work can be seen everywhere:

On T-shirts for the upcoming Tour of the Tucson Mountains. Embroidered hats for Kevin Costner's golf flick, "Tin Cup." The oversized Mexican flags used in "The Alamo."

If the University of Arizona is in the Final Four, she's probably printing up some T-shirts.

Peter Backus, a local developer who works with Janoff on the advisory board of Big Brothers — Big Sisters of Tucson, has hired Kola's to embroider jackets, vests and hats and to print on shot glasses and wineglasses.

"She is constantly looking for items for me. I've done a considerably large amount of business with her," Backus said. "She's never been late on anything for me."

Janoff's true talents are in sales and organizing people, Backus said. For Big Brothers — Big Sisters, Janoff works well with the organization but will also hold her own fund-raisers.

Another of Janoff's earliest clients is Janos Wilder, owner of Janos Restaurant and J Bar, 3770 E. Sunrise Drive. He's hired Kola's to print his restaurant's logo on wine keys and chef's knives to give as employee gifts. She also printed up the "Team Janos" T-shirts that employees wore during the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure.

"Every year, we give staff gifts out around the holidays. She always has great ideas," Wilder said.

He didn't know she could screen a lasagna noodle or a tortilla.

"I can't believe she hasn't told me that," Wilder said, laughing.

Name: Kola Janoff.

Age: 56.

Job: Owner, Kola's Screen Graphics, 2102 E. 14th St., 622-5652.

Friday On the Job focuses on the people who make Tucson businesses run — those who are in charge, keep a business running, are just starting out or hire workers.