Florida Agenda

WILTON MANORS, FL  – On Friday, Feb. 17, Bruce Bogan, the owner of Copy This and Planet Press printing and graphics, suffered a heart attack that left him hospitalized. Bogan, 50, complained of chest pains that afternoon, and placed a call to friend Brad Casey, an account executive for Multimedia Platforms, LLC, publisher of the Florida Agenda.

“Something is wrong,” Casey remembers Bogan telling him on the phone. He was experiencing chest pains and was sweating profusely when Casey arrived at his Wilton Drive store. “I could tell that he was in duress,” Casey recounted. “We rushed him to Imperial Point [Medical Center], and the doctors confirmed he was in the beginning stages of a heart attack.”

After doctors stabilized Bogan, he was taken to Broward General Medical Center in Fort Lauderdale, where a blockage was removed from his heart valve, a stent inserted by surgeons, and Bogan was placed on a heart pump to ensure adequate blood flow. He subsequently developed pneumonia.

Casey says that Bogan’s prognosis is a long recovery, “but there is progress.” In the meantime, Bogan’s partner, Billy Sand, has stepped in to fill the void left in Bogan’s business operations. Friends are also lending a hand to keep both Copy This and Planet Press open for business, fulfilling existing customer orders, and taking new ones.

“I want to thank [Bruce’s] family, friends, and the community for all your prayers, thoughts, and support during these difficult times,” offered Sand, the owner of Diner-by-the-Sea. “I look forward to the time when Bruce can personally thank all of you himself.”

Bruce Bogan is a native of Brooklyn, New York, where he ran a successful printing enterprise before relocating his business to Wilton Manors about five years ago. Bogan recently won the
grand prize in the “Dancing with the South Florida Stars” dancing competition, a fund-raising event for the Brian Neal Fitness and Health Foundation HIV charity.

Bruce Bogan has much to celebrate this Pride Sunday. It marks the four year anniversary of his very successful printing company, COPYthis, on Wilton Drive.

He says, “I grew up with this, my grandfather and father were printers. I took over my father’s bus iness

in New York. I’ve been printing for 40 years. I did design work before computers came and before fax machines. My first fax machine was $1200 and I had one of the first computers – an IBM system 30 – in the 1990’s.”

When asked why he decided to move to Fort Lauderdale, he jokes saying, “Wilton Manors needed me!” He then gets serious and explains, “9/11 killed New York. My father wanted me to move here and I wanted to move here. I wanted it all, the house, picket fence and someone to share it with.”

So he took the move and, in time for Pride, he found his store and signed the lease and got the keys on the same day. Initially, it was slow, so he continued to print for WPLS, the largest Afro-American radio station in NYC and a client list that has names that would blow you away (Harry Winston, McDonalds, Donna Karan even Martha Stewart). Day after day, he kept working for his clients in New York. Then, little by little, he got introduced to people. He says with a smile that on his opening “George [Georgie’s Alibi] sent me a plant over to welcome me to the neighborhood. He started giving me work and it snowballed.”

How has he been successful in such a difficult economic climate? Simple. he says. “I know what I do and how to do it. MY reputation precedes me, you could say. The best advertising is word of mouth and I love what I do. I love to work – I could live here in my store!”

So is he excited for Sunday? “Yes! It is all because of my father. I want him to come on Sunday. It’s my four year anniversary. I’m still here even in this economy!”

He says for the future in a perfect world, “I would like there to be another COPYthis – my dream would be to have them all over the country.”