TORONTO—Tech Web Printing ceases production this week and president David Gilby plans to exit the printing industry. The company will vacate its building by July 31.

"I looked ahead at the future of the printing industry, and its competitiveness, and I basically decided it wasn't an industry I wanted to stay in," Gilby said. "Also, I'm 59 years-old and thought it was an appropriate time to do an orderly shutdown."


A screenshot of Tech Web Printing's website

Gilby said that although Tech Web has been consistently profitable, aside from the recession year of 2008, he was seeing an unavoidable downward trend in the industry. "It was about looking at the credit risk from customers and the profitability in the margins that are available, and it didn't make sense to me as a business. And I believe it will worsen. I don't see the trend turning," he said.

Tech Web Printing launched in 1997, specializing in magazines. The company later shifted its focus to four-page and eight-page flyers. Gilby has been sole owner since his business partner and long-time friend Max Hudson, who helped found Tech Web, died 2007 in a plane crash. The company has nine employees including Gilby.

Gilby will move on from printing with plans to take university courses and cooking lessons, put in hours at a soup kitchen, and continue organizing concerts to raise money for Toronto's Regent Park School of Music. "It's been a good ride," Gilby said. "I saw the window and it was time to go, and I'm gone."