Brief Corporate History

United Systems of Arkansas (USA) began as a print brokerage firm with the single purpose of handling the validation and typesetting of directory data. USA’s first physical location was a dining room with one employee. Two months later the company moved into a 200 square foot office with three employees. Entering its sixth year, USA has grown into a 10,000 plus square foot plant with nine employees. All employees work together to get the desired results for the customer. Formal titles are used sparingly as everyone in the company provides an important part of our service. Over the last five years we have developed three high tech job positions resulting in greater quality control, efficiency and service to our clients. 

The nature of our business requires rapid implementation of new technology. We create new procedures daily to invent products and solutions not available in the market. Our computer systems are designed to administer quality control procedures, allowing the production of a complex job by low skilled labor. Our priority compliance solutions, layout and formats usually last two to three years before larger companies use us as a "me too" approach and sell on price. 

Planning, research, self-reliance, and not accepting outsiders saying "it cannot be done" has been part of our success. For example, part of a continuing contract awarded to USA included producing and mailing 150 thousand pieces of Certified Mail. We discovered that the USPS method had great potential for errors and was labor intensive. We had to come up with a better way. Faced with "it cannot be done" attitudes from many, it took 14 frustrating months to develop a system that would be 100% accountable. The USPS procedures required hand-completing a customer receipt, a Return Receipt, transferring article numbers, filling out a mailing firm book, peeling and sticking certified stickers and return cards to the envelopes, rubber stamping special services, and then delivering to the USPS to get each piece canceled. 

We were determined to develop a system that would assure our client a timely 100% solution by the USPS and ourselves. Driven to prove it could be done, and by working closely with the USPS and manufacturers, the USA/Certified Mailer System, 22 months later, was granted its first patent. The form also won a Gold Medal for design in a national contest held by "Business Forms, Labels and Systems" magazine. 

This solution worked great but, during our first forms marketing efforts, we discovered a void that our product could not meet. The problem was our form could not be used with envelopes larger that the standard #10 size. We went back to the drawing board and developed a laser label form that can be used on the larger envelopes and packages. (The laser form is now patent pending). This form also won a gold Medal. 

We then were faced with the need to further simplify the process and developed a combination Envelope/Return Card laser form which allows for single pass addressing of both the envelope and the card. This eliminated the matching of the two and reduced the process to 1) print the envelope, 2) insert documents and mail. This form has just won a Platinum Medal. We are not finished yet as we are not satisfied with the status quo, we always strive for further innovation and improvements.  

Slowing our growth to maintain quality control has been difficult, but we know that the quality of our work is what our customers are buying. We would rather pass on an opportunity than sacrifice our customers’ confidence by overloading our production capacity. The USA/Certified Mailer System product and letter shop services are projected to be our biggest niche and are spawning many new patentable products and solutions. This niche market is paving our road to international markets. We have laid ground work with our products in several foreign countries and we have had three Fortune 500 firms express interest in exclusive rights to re-market our product.