CROWN POINT — Burrell Imaging, once a significant player nationwide in photo processing services for professionals, will close at the end of this month, owner Don Burrell has announced.
At one time the company Burrell founded in his basement in Gary operated nine photo labs in the Midwest and other states. Today, its sole processing facility is in Crown Point, where about 40 people work.
“It’s my 57th year in business, so it’s a very difficult decision to make, but there comes a time you have to make a decision,” Burrell said when contacted Wednesday.
In a letter to customers, Burrell said he is trying to ensure that all customers have the opportunity to get their work submitted and completed before the company closes. He has already arranged to have Full Color Inc., of Dallas, Texas, undertake future photo finishing tasks for Burrell Imaging customers.
That company can be reached by telephone at (800) 382-2101 and maintains a website at www.fullcolor.com/burrell.
Burrell’s philanthropic endeavors include contributions that underwrote the founding of the St. Jude House women’s and children’s shelter and the Burrell Cancer Institute at Franciscan St. Anthony Health hospital in Crown Point.
Burrell, who is 79, said he is retiring from the photo business but not his philanthropic endeavors. In recognition of his business accomplishments and charitable work, Burrell was inducted into The Times Business & Industry Hall of Fame in 2009.
In his letter to customers this week, Burrell wrote he came to his decision to retire after many long and hard discussions with family and doctors. He said the demands of running the business had impacted his health, particularly in the past year.
In its heyday, Burrell Imaging served wedding and portrait photographers nationwide, employing more than 1,000 people at its photo labs.
In 2003, Eastman Kodak Co. bought Burrell Imaging, then known as Burrell Professional Labs, for $62 million. That sale came about under an agreement Burrell had previously negotiated with Kodak, a company he had long partnered with.
Kodak sold the company nine months later to privately-held Jasco, also a Rochester-based company. In 2007, Burrell bought the company back from Jasco, which had sold of many of its photo labs in other cities.