MEDIA RELEASE
February 27, 2003
Contact:
Angela
Berry
Phone – 517-487-6340 x 19
Roy C.
Saper Honored at
Lansing Regional Chamber of Commerce Annual Dinner
|
Lansing - The
Lansing Regional Chamber of Commerce recognized East
Lansing businessman Roy C. Saper of Saper
Galleries as its 2003 Outstanding Small Business
Person Award recipient. The award was one of
five presented during the Chamber’s 91st Annual
Dinner held at the Holiday Inn South on February 27. The annual Outstanding Small Business Person Award is presented to the owner of a local small business that meets the criteria of stability, innovation, commitment to community, perseverance, and commitment to diversity. Roy
Saper has been in the art business for 25 years,
after a successful career as an economist with the
state of Michigan. He created 20th
Century Fine Arts in 1978 to provide high quality
unique and limited edition works of art to
individual collectors as well as custom framing. He
successfully ran the business out of his home for
eight years until there was no longer sufficient
space to manage the volume of activity and growing
inventory. After purchasing property in East
Lansing, Saper meticulously planned and designed
both the exterior and interior of his gallery
designing a 4,000 square foot building that would be
a work of art as well as innovative in the art
world. In 1986, Saper Galleries opened its doors and
has since hosted more than two-dozen major art
exhibitions including Rembrandt, Picasso, Normal
Rockwell and Peter Max and has garnered a client
base of 7,500. He was one of the first in the art
field to utilize computers, even creating a program
that showed clients the exact cost of every
component of their framing order years before it
became standard practice. The gallery expanded in
1998 adding over 2,000 square feet and Saper
continues to make innovative improvements in
lighting, display and security. Since
its inception, Saper has been involved in all
aspects of the business from human resources,
finances and public relations to record maintenance,
client and artist relations. He has overcome hurdles
such as start-up financing, break-ins, destruction
and loss of property and increasing demands of his
time. He has supported diversity by offering the
community works of art from artists of every
culture, mentoring and supporting minority artists
and hiring a broad range of employees including one
who was homeless. Saper’s
expertise
has been utilized by countless local and national
organizations to jury art exhibitions, lecture on
all aspects of art for all age groups, to share
industry innovations with others in the art field
and to serve as an expert for legal cases involving
art fraud. Saper has won three international DÉCOR
magazine awards for gallery design, creative
management and advertising and promotion. He has
also received the East Lansing Crystal Award and the
Business Arts Award from the Arts Council Center of
Greater Lansing. Among
many others, Saper’s community service includes
president of the Friends of Kresge Art Museum,
Chairman of the Dean’s Community Council of the
College of Arts and Letters, co-founder of the
Greater Lansing Association of Galleries and Museums
and chair of the East Lansing Downtown Development
Authority. He is a member of the East Lansing Fine
Arts Commission, East Lansing Arts Festival Board,
Economic Development Corp. and Greater Lansing Food
Bank. The Lansing Regional
Chamber of Commerce is dedicated to identifying and
serving the needs of business-small and large-by
providing services to members, promoting members’
growth and facilitating economic development of the
greater Lansing area. _________________________________________________________________________ Lansing Regional Chamber of Commerce300 E. Michigan Ave. – Lansing, MI 48901 – 517-487-6340 – www.lansingchamber.org |