John Schreenan, the last-remaining family member running the operation formerly known as Kings the Printer and King Print, has retired after 20 years, leaving owner Leon Wilson at the helm.

It's a struggle worldwide for legacy print businesses to make the leap to digital. But the long-standing Ballarat business has done it, and become an industry leader.

With a massive investment in automation, an order drops every couple of minutes at Revolution Print, which are dispatched Australia-wide.

It's built a reputation in its industry as being ahead of the game and it's something John is incredibly proud of as he leaves the business.

The family's connection with the print business began with Eddie Schreenan, who joined the King brothers as a production operator in 1966.

When they retired, he and another partner bought them out in the mid 1970s, moving from Lydiard Street to Dana Street.

It remained a family affair for many years after Eddie retired, with John's brother Danny working in as an apprentice press operator in the early days, while brother Peter joined them on the finance side in the late 1980s.

John had been working in Melbourne in the corporate world for Xerox selling big printing presses and joined the family business in 2004.

"Once I came here, I moved to the other side of the fence where I was buying the big printing presses, the digital printing presses," he said.

In 2010, his brothers moved on and John was keen to invest in the business and buy them out.

A year later, he hired Leon Wilson, who he soon realised was a good fit to one day take over the business.

Leon began buying shares and bought John out in 2019.

It came at the right time - John found the right supplier and software partner to innovate and Leon was keen on pursuing this.

"He helped drive that much better than I would have done on my own," he said.

His proudest moment came in 2009, when online was starting, and setting up the ability for their customers to transact online.

They went from having no online traffic and ordering, to 70 per cent of their business within three years.

It was the game changer.

"We were trying to get online working in the print world, with so many permutations and combinations and it was really hard," he said.

"I tried and failed, I reckon three times to get that right. And eventually, we got it right.

"Now every two or three minutes, an order drops in from a client and I sit there and think it was all worth it."

John says printing was a conservative industry and when he bought his brothers out, he did a lot of investing and took some risks.

Once Leon joined, the pair took those risks to the next level.

"I would always just say never be scared to invest if you truly believe in what you're doing and you've got a passion for the industry," he said.

"Investing in stuff that seems scary when you look at the dollar value but it just seems to work out as long as you've got the right attitude towards it.

"We just believed in it - we had a feeling it would work out and it did."

A motto for John is to never sit still.

"Always be moving, changing and investing," he said.

"As long as you're waking up in the morning feeling energetic about work, there's no reason to not continue to invest in technology, automation and people."

In 2024, Revolution has built a reputation off the back of it's automation and is in Leon's hands.

It's where John dreamed the business would get to.

But he always credits his father and brothers for their legacy in laying the foundations of the business, ready for him to take it forward with fresh thinking and financial capacity.

"They set the business up and created the platform and the base for me to be able to try some new things," he said.

His children both worked in the business for a short time and between he and his brothers and their children, there were 108 years of Schreenans working in the business.

And they still hold many of the same customers Eddie Schreenan had in the 1970s, off the back of maintaining those relationships.

Now, it's time to move onto other things, with plans to pursue his property interests, learn a language and go travelling with his wife, Colleen.

"I always wanted to retire young, when I was still fit and active and my mind's still in a great place and I've still got plenty of excitement left in me," he said.