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published on August 12, 2016 - 9:11 AM
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Local paint expert Bill Edholm is coming out of retirement with a plan to pass on his skills to veterans in need of work.
Eight years ago, Edholm closed his popular Custom Wallprinting business intent on enjoying a long restful retirement, but he couldn’t shake the feeling he got when he noticed how many young veterans had trouble finding work after returning home from serving overseas in Iraq and Afghanistan.


His strong desire to help these veterans prompted him to start an organization called the American Society of Professional Wallprinters (ASPW) Academy. Through this academy, Edholm, his son and grandsons plan to train veterans in the custom wall printing process. The aim, Edholm said, is for veterans to learn these skills and go into business for themselves.
“We’re trying to establish the business again, but the real purpose is that the money is going to go to the ASPW and these certified veterans will go back home with new skills,” Edholm said.
These skills go beyond just the ability to paint a wall without getting the color on the ceiling. Veterans will learn the entire custom wallprinting process, in which a device resembling a handheld printing press is used to apply acrylic latex designs directly to walls. Uniquely, these patterns can be applied to all types walls—smooth, textured, vinyl, wallpaper, paneling or cinderblock. Unlike wallpaper, which needs to be replaced entirely if a portion is damaged, walls that have a wallprinted design can be repaired. Veterans will learn how to do these repairs as well as how to use the wall-printing device to do the initial paint job.
After participating in the three-week training course, Edholm said certified veterans will be sent home with business cards, shirts and marketing materials showing the wall printing process, including a computer with part of the sales presentation on it, a video loop to show at tradeshows, color and pattern samples and an easel they can use to show the printing process to people. The veterans will also be able to contact Custom Wallprinting and other ASPW certified veterans to share tips and ideas.
“When they get home and they do their local doctor’s office, they can send a before and after photo to us, which we’ll disseminate to all the other veterans out there and they’ll give each other new ideas,” Edholm said.
While there will be communication between Custom Wallprinting and the veterans, Edholm said the veterans will be the owners of their own wall printing businesses, not franchisees. Instead, Edholm said, Custom Wallprinting will remain its own separate business with the Central Valley as its territory. Veterans accepted to the academy, he said, will be selected from other areas throughout the nation to avoid direct competition with Custom Wallprinting. Custom Wallprinting will also hold its own by expanding its collection of patterns and selling those new patterns to other wall printing businesses that open up as a result of the academy.
The hope, Edholm said, is for 2,500 veterans to go through the academy in the next five years and open up their own wall printing businesses in other cities across the United States. This, Edholm said, is not only great for the veterans in the program but for the cities of Fresno and Clovis.
“Over the course of five years, 2,500 people coming in and seeing how great Fresno and Clovis are and spending money here going to this museum or this restaurant will have an impact,” Edholm said.
The program will also benefit local veterans agencies and nonprofits.
“Once we get some veterans going, what we want to do is take them out to that 80-acre veterans home and have them decorate that whole thing for free,” Edholm said. “Then we’ll go to the Ronald McDonald House and Nancy Hinds Hospice and places like that around town. We want to open it up to all the veterans’ locations first and then look for other community service projects. Later, we may open it up for some homes and businesses to apply. We’ll need a lot of walls for these guys to get hands-on experience.”
Before Edholm’s retirement in 2008, Custom Wallprinting was a thriving business painting homes and offices throughout the Valley since 1980. Some of the places Custom Wallprinting did work were Saint Agnes Medical Center, the old Fresno Area Chamber of Commerce building, the Holiday Inn at Center Plaza in downtown Fresno, and dorms and offices at Fresno State.
Now, Edholm said Custom Wallprinting plans to deliver the same quality of service it used to once again. The academy, he said, is just a new facet of the business.
“We’re coming back with an even better version of the magically proven process of Custom Wallprinting,” Edholm said.
For more information about Custom Wallprinting or the ASPW Academy, call (559) 432-7181.


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