Chris West and a tall gold statue
By Elliott Brack
Editor and Publisher, GwinnettForum
OCT. 8, 2024 | A company based in Suwanee at one time had the contract to produce the Oscars presented at the movies’ Academy Awards program. The late founder of the company, Vernon (Dave) West, bought a similar failing company in Tucker in 1959, which had the contact to produce the Oscars. Back then West’s firm, Speciality Engraving, was located on Buford Highway in Norcross.
Today, Chris West heads Speciality Engraving, now on Lawrenceville-Suwanee Road, which has 25 employees. He lives on Lake Lanier in Forsyth County with his wife and four children. They have two grandchildren. He and his wife met while attending Gainesville Junior College. He was born in Decatur, and for most of his life was a sub and general contractor in Tarpon Springs, Florida “until the economy went bad in 2008.” He returned from Florida in 2010.
The Oscars were made of pot metal with a chrome finish, Chris West recalls. “We supplied the gold tone. Those Oscars are heavy, weighing 5-6 pounds. People who own Oscars can’t sell ‘em. However, people can inherit them. Our company no longer has that contract.”
Walk into their showroom today, and you can see a replica of the Academy Awards’ Oscars trophy in their showcase. You’ll also see a life-size gold statue, similar to the Oscars. Companies holding ceremonies occasionally rent the life-sized statue for big events. It’s striking.
Today Specialty Engraving concentrates on producing employee recognition awards for major corporations, such as Home Depot, Coca Cola and Delta Airlines. It is the largest manufacturer of awards products in the Southeast. They do work for most of the big name companies in Atlanta and firms in distant locations. The company says it does work from “Fortune 500 companies to soccer moms.”
The company produces their awards on all sorts of materials, from different woods, to engraved metal plaques. Or they will create awards on stone, crystal or glass. Specialty’s own artists can adapt most any medium as an unique award.
Success for Specialty Engraving came early, as Chris’ Uncle Dave West innovated with products. Chris proudly remembers: “Uncle Dave adapted the laser for the entire engraving business. We made laser engravers for the entire industry when on Buford Highway. Those engraving machines sold for $1 million each. When younger, Uncle Dave had me operating 12 of them simultaneously in one room. We manufactured those engravers for 5-10 years. Today you can buy a decent desktop engraver for $5-10,000. Work that used to take a day or more you can now do in a quarter hour.”
Chris took over the business seven years ago. “I worked with Uncle Dave during his last years here, and finally bought the company. By then my uncle was ready not to work, and he knew it was time to bow out. He lived until he was 84, passing away about two years ago.
“When I came back to Georgia, my first work for Speciality Engraving was to enclose a large area of our warehouse in our 13,000 square foot building to make it air conditioned and to give us better storage space. I also built a break room for our employees, with a full kitchen.”
Speciality Engraving values its employees. Chris says: “We pay attention to our quality of work, to service for our customers, and to our people, making sure they are happy and fulfilled and want to work here.”
Though they no longer deliver the Oscars to awards winners, many companies rely on Specialty Engraving to recognize their employees with unique and distinctive award products.
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