Westmark Productions

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The Westmark philosophy is to provide our customers with high-quality recording and production services, CDs and DVDs on time and at reasonable cost. We are structured to provide a comprehensive service that begins with the recording and continues through the delivery of your finished media. This means that you have one point of contact for your project from start to finish. Since our first days in 1975, we have focused on providing our services to music programs and ensembles engaged in the performance of historic and current fine arts literature in the choral/vocal, wind, string and jazz mediums: The business began as an avocation for DuWayne ( Dewey ) Kloos. Dewey was a public school music director who was interested in recording and in 1973 started to do serious recording of school groups in his district. Colleagues asked him to do other recording jobs and what began as a hobby became a business in 1975. In addition to his teaching duties, Dewey began operating a professional recording service that catered to the school, church, and community music group market with vinyl LP records produced from the recordings. Dewey joined a consortium of individuals with similar businesses that existed to get volume-buying discounts for vinyl record mastering and pressing. This association, known then as Mark Custom Records, had grown out of the Century Custom Recording organization. ( as a side note, another offshoot of Century Custom Recording is the well-known audiophile label Telarc ). When the Minnesota affiliates of Mark Custom Records broke ties with the central office in New York they chose the name Westmark as a way to both maintain name recognition and underscore their mutual location west of the Mississippi. Other members of the original Westmark consortium were Don Geiken in Moorhead, Al Opland in Pipestone, and Herb Streitz in Waseca. In time the vinyl LP was replaced by the audio cassette as the medium of choice for clients served by the business. Cassettes, unlike vinyl records, could be profitably duplicated locally and the need for the consortium faded away. Dewey eventually was operating as an independent business, and with the retirements of the other Midwest associates became the sole remaining bearer of the Westmark name. The name was updated to Westmark Productions as the business moved away from vinyl records to audio and video cassettes, compact discs and DVDs. The business had been growing steadily, and with the added time available to take on work, the rate of growth increased. In 1997 Dewey began to investigate the sale of the business in anticipation of his retirement. In January of 1999 he entered into an agreement with Doug Geston to sell the business. After a six-month apprenticeship We continue to provide our clients with high quality audio and video recording and production services with a staff of two full-time and two part-time employees and a large cadre of experienced recording personnel. Over the years we have expanded our offerings to include multi-track audio recording, video recording and editing and DVD production, all with the same quality and attention to detail that has made Westmark the largest recording and production service of its kind in Minnesota.