{"id":1049,"date":"2026-05-27T12:14:15","date_gmt":"2026-05-27T16:14:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/magazine\/?p=1049"},"modified":"2026-05-27T12:14:15","modified_gmt":"2026-05-27T16:14:15","slug":"saving-paul-reveres-stationery-supplier","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/magazine\/saving-paul-reveres-stationery-supplier\/","title":{"rendered":"Saving Paul Revere\u2019s stationery supplier"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If you ask someone to name an American paper company, the likely response would probably be Dunder Mifflin, the fictional home of the popular sitcom The Office<\/em>. Truthfully, who even knows<\/em> the name of a real-life paper company?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Todd Kletter does.<\/p>\n\n\n\nTodd Kletter in the Crane Stationery plant in Cohoes, New York.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
The Clark alum can tell you all about Crane Stationery. About how the company, founded in 1770, is older than the United States itself. About Crane\u2019s cotton-fiber sheets, which have carried presidential signatures, royal invitations, and U.S. currency. About Paul Revere having banknotes \u2014 known as \u201ccod notes\u201d \u2014 printed on Crane stationery to help finance the American Revolution.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For most of its two centuries-plus history, Crane Stationery boasted an impressive legacy and peerless craftsmanship. What it didn\u2019t have was a future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On February 13, 2024, the Cohoes, New York, company was shuttered by its corporate owner, Fedrigoni Group, an Italian paper conglomerate that had purchased Crane\u2019s parent company, Mohawk Fine Papers, and determined that Crane did not align with its business model. The closure meant the loss of more than 80 jobs, including those of some people whom Kletter had come to know through his family\u2019s business, a national distributor of photographic and printing supplies. Coincidentally, Kletter also had worked for 18 months as a consultant with Crane to help them repair their stagnant operations, and he was still friendly with a number of the employees. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
As the managing partner of WP Strategic Holdings, a private consulting and investment firm specializing in small and middle-market companies, Kletter found himself in a position to not only reopen Crane\u2019s doors, but to breathe new life into a legacy brand that had begun its life in the Berkshires before being moved outside of Albany. At the conclusion of three high-speed, high-wire weeks of negotiations with Fedrigoni, WP Strategic Holdings acquired Crane Stationery and initiated an immediate relaunch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe day we closed the deal, we restarted,\u201d Kletter says. \u201cNo ceremony, no speeches. We turned the lights back on.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On March 18, 2024, Kletter stood at the door of the Crane Stationery plant and welcomed back press operators, engineers, electricians, and production workers who were eager to return to their workstations, which had lain idle for the past month. Ninety-five percent of Crane\u2019s original workforce was rehired; systems were revamped and stricter financial controls implemented, while the company\u2019s signature craftmanship\u2014such as engraving, letterpress, and hand-inspection processes\u2014remained untouched.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Crucially, the company rebuilt trust with clients. Operations resumed, customers came back, orders were met. By April, Kletter notes, Crane was cash flow-positive, and by late spring it had regained its full pre-closure volume. <\/p>\n\n\n\nWorkers in the machine room of the Crane Stationery plant in Dalton, Massachusetts, in the 1890s.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
Kletter\u2019s entrepreneurial spirit and appreciation for the past are both grounded at Clark, where he majored in history (his deepest passion was American history). He found an influential mentor in Professor Janette Greenwood, started a T-shirt business, and established a network of friendships with Clarkies from the Class of 1996 that endures today. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cClark was a real pivotal moment in my life. It broadened my horizons,\u201d said Kletter, who went on to earn his MBA at Syracuse University. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
After his family\u2019s business was sold in 2008, Kletter became CEO of an organic food company before leaving to enter the world of private equity. Today, in addition to his work with WP Strategic Holdings, he is also the chief executive of an artesian water company. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
He\u2019s done plenty of deals, but the Crane Stationery saga was personal for him, given his prior experience with the company. When Fedrigoni shut down Crane, employees he\u2019d known from his consulting days began calling him to ask whether he had any information about their prospects. When he decided to pursue the purchase, he devoted 20-hour days to reaching an agreement. \u201cWe had a melting ice cube,\u201d he recalls. \u201cIf it took too long, we would lose employees and have a harder time getting customers back\u2014the business would be unsalvageable. It\u2019s much easier to shut down a company than to start one back up.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
After reopening, Kletter stayed on for a year as chief strategic officer at Crane. In July of 2025, WP Strategic Holdings sold Crane Stationery to a North Carolina firm that he says was well-positioned \u201cto bring the company to the next level.\u201d From a business standpoint, the move was a smart one for all involved and has given Crane \u201cthe right home,\u201d he insists. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
But for Kletter, who keeps a Revere-era cod note on his desk as a reminder of the history he helped preserve, the experience means more than dollars and cents. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cCrane holds a special place in my heart,\u201d Kletter says. \u201cI\u2019ve never seen a group of employees rise to an occasion like these employees did. And to be able to say we saved the ninth-oldest operating company in America is pretty wild.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2014 Jim Keogh<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Todd Kletter \u201996 invests in a historic company\u2019s turnaround<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":1051,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"departments":[13],"issues":[32],"class_list":["post-1049","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","departments-alma-mater","issues-spring-2026"],"yoast_head":"\n
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![\"Todd](\"https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/90\/Kletter-Crane-2024.jpg\")
![\"Crane](\"https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/90\/1890s-machine-room-1200.jpg\")