(Technician - Longview Office) - Being at Datamax is more than a career for Chris Hoefer – it’s a sense of community.

The industry veteran considers a lot of his customers good friends. He stays involved with the Knights of Columbus in his hometown of Longview. He also leads an East Texas Special Olympics Group called East Texas Lightning, where he helps coordinate all types of sporting events throughout the year for handicapped individuals.

His own daughter Christina is disabled, and through Ainsley’s Angels, they run wheelchair races in Texas and Louisiana every year. His sense of community connects him to his role as technician, where his customers are much more than just customers. It’s as if they’re family.

What led me to Datamax?

In high school, Chris took a job cleaning tanks for a local copier company. He liked the gig enough to enter the industry officially as a copier technician in 1982.

“My dad gave me a choice of attending college or going to work and making money. The job market wasn’t that great at the time, so it was either collect a lot of debt or put some money aside, so that’s what we did,” Chris recalls.

My experiences at Datamax:

Chris has been a part of 9 total acquisitions, most recently when East Texas Copy Systems was purchased by Datamax in 2018. Every time, he claims, the business practices and overall environment get a little bit better.

“You benefit from different ideas and different people, and I feel like right now we are using really good business practices. As a service department, I feel like today we are well-oiled machine,” Chris said.

No matter how the company grows, nothing breaks his close bond with so many of his customers.

“I have a lot of customers who are actually friends. Just as an example, one of our customers in the sponsor for the “freeze Your Fanny” ride that I coordinate raise money for Special Olympics,” Chris said. “I get to see different people every day, and so many of these people, we genuinely enjoy each other’s company outside of the office.”

What makes me want to stay at Datamax?

It’s that word again. Family.

“If someone were to ask me what it’s like at Datamax, my response would be that it’s more like a family. It’s a family-run type of business, and you go into work and know that someone has your back.  We’re a great company that makes it easy to do business with.”