About

As a young man, Dan Drexler’s artistic talent and mechanical experience came together in building and painting over 100 model cars, trucks, airplanes, and snowmobiles. Then after high school graduation in 1987, with continued painting and lettering projects, a vacant room in the back of Fareway Sales, located in Downtown Stratford, became the new Dan’s Paint & Design. The next 4 years while attending UW-Stout, his hobby continued to grow into a small business. Lettering race cars, trucks and more sign and lettering projects of all kinds began to be familiar and man basement workshop at his home on soon became a color pallete. Various painting and building projects were frequent from the late 70’s to the early 80’s. Soon this talent became noticed in the community and Dan expanded into other projects, such as, simple business signs, helmet painting and trailer lettering projects during his high school years.

In 1991, a college degree became reality and the first “real job” took Dan to Felker Brothers in Marshfield, WI. Along with employment, the part-time sign business continued to grow. Over the next 3.5 years with continued growth, the business moved to the back-alley garage of his parent’s house in Stratford. With the purchase of our first vinyl cutting graphics system, a new market blossomed. The business grew to more than part-time. From the professional life at Felker’s to the back door, April of 1995 became a full-time gamble for the one-man operation.

As business continued to grow, and adding our first sign truck, we decided to change the name to Stratford Sign Company, LLC, which led us to focus on building a sign factory.

In the fall of 1998, our current location became the new home with 4,500 square foot facility. Electric signs became popular, along with larger trucking projects and increased decals and graphics. Another truck and more employees were the trend moving forward. The dedication of valued customers and dedicated employees soon outgrew the somewhat new facility.

In 2003, a 5,000 square foot addition was constructed, offering more offices, larger graphics area and a larger dedicated vehicle graphics installation area. Assembly area was a necessity for completion of manufactured signs. Full color printing, CNC routing and vehicle wraps were introduced as technology became affordable. More employees, more installation of trucks, expanded painting area and manufacturing equipment continued to fill the new space as needed. As in the past, over the next 9.5 years, this facility became cramped as growth continued.

With another expansion necessary at the end of 2012, brought the start of more expansion plans. After planning for 6-months, May 2013 found ground breaking of our current facility. New construction, new equipment, new state-of-the-art paint booths, more offices and remodeling of old, would develop over the next 11 months to what is currently our main building floor plan.

Within a short period of time, we continued to feel the need to add on additional space. The building next door had been for sale for some time and the decision to acquire the space became necessary to continue with the demands for production. We moved our Channel Letter Factory, our Awning Fabrication and overflow of graphic installation into the new building.

The demand of our customers, dedication of great employees, commitment by our family and a common goal of continued growth, we now look to the future. Stratford Sign Company, LLC foresees continuing to branch to other areas of manufacturing to have Total Sign Solutions for all our customer needs.