About Us - Express Sign Products

I began designing and making signs in 1985. Ten years later my wife and I sold our two sign shops to open Express Sign Products Inc in Pincher Creek, Alberta. In 2007 we opened our second warehouse in St. Marys, Ontario, the town where I was born, and in 2022 we opened our third warehouse in Edmonton, Alberta. Our desire was to make it quicker for you, our customers, to receive the materials you rely on to do your jobs. Our goal continues to be to serve the whole Canadian sign making industry with unique and quality sign making supplies.

We love what we do. Our industry is all about blending creativity and communication into effective advertising. It is our daily goal to offer you personal and experienced customer service, low pricing, and speedy shipping. We enjoy many loyal customers across Canada, and it is a pleasure to visit with each one of you.

Lance Giesbrecht

 

Our Mission

We are dedicated to providing each of our valued customers in the sign world the highest level of service, a very broad selection of products, at the most competitive prices. We are committed to going the extra mile, serving each of you like we want to be served.

 

Bits of our History

The “Express” Time Line

 
1985
Summer '85 finds Lance building fences for ranchers who lost their ranches to a wildfire in Roundup, Montana. His dad calls him up, mentioning that their neighbour’s sign shop, Country Signs, is for sale for $600. Making a living farming in these days is difficult, so maybe, this would be good supplemental income. Included in this price, the owner offers the business name, 3 days of hand lettering training, a dozen quills (lettering brushes), and a few partial cans of 1Shot lettering enamel. Little did he realize where his first sign shop was going to take him.
1986
Lance marries Shari, a lovely young Canadian/American bride down in South Texas. They work out of a one car garage creating signs for the region.
1987
Lance and Shari sell Country Signs and move to a larger market area. They open a brand-new sign shop called Sign Designers. All their signs are created in a garage using hand lettering and pre-spaced vinyl lettering and graphics from a wholesale source in Kansas. Lance and Shari begin fostering children.
1989
Lance decides to quit farming and enter the computerized sign making world full time with the purchase and aid of a CAD sign making computer. This comes with a DOS-based drafting plotter adapted for vinyl letter cutting using a heat tip.
1990
Their love for big sky country, brilliant sunshine, and the majestic Canadian Rockies prompts Lance and Shari and their two sons to move to Pincher Creek, Alberta. They purchase their first “yodeling” 20" Roland printer for $2200. They become the new owners of Signs Unlimited and experience for the first time a chinook wind.
1992
Lance opens Signs Superstore in Lethbridge, Alberta.
1993
Lance starts importing and distributing license plates. He enters the mail order and sign supply business as National Plates.
1995
Express Sign Products is incorporated. Lance sells their two sign shops and focuses entirely on promoting hard-to-find sign tools and supplies from a rented 17ft × 24ft warehouse. The first catalogue is a one-page flyer sent to a small list of Western Canadian sign shops.
2000
A life-changing decision is made. Lance and Shari and family travel to Ukraine to adopt a daughter. This modifies their future business goals as they become more involved in caring for orphans and kids from difficult circumstances.
2004
Express purchases a t-shirt factory building in Pincher Creek and renovates it into the current 10,000 ft² warehouse, expanding their market across Canada.
2007
Express opens their second warehouse in Lance’s birth town of St Marys, Ontario, to better serve our customers in Eastern Canada. 
2011
By this time, God has blessed Shari and Lance with 12 children, both biological and adopted. The family is granted Ukrainian permanent resident status and live part time in a village south of Kyiv, Ukraine. With the help of IP telephone technology, Lance and the Express Team take orders from Alberta, Ontario, or Ukraine.
2015
Thanks to strong growth, the warehouse and office in St. Marys, Ontario, is shuffled and expanded. The product catalogue has grown from 1 page to 90 pages.
2018
The Pincher Creek warehouse is enlarged to accommodate an ever-increasing range of products. The St. Marys location starts a local delivery service.
2020
Express Sign Products turns 25 years old! Covid hits and the world turns topsy-turvy. 
2022
Russia attacks Ukraine. Mark (Lance's son) and family make a tense escape to Poland and then to Canada. Express opens a third warehouse in Edmonton, Alberta, to better serve customers in Western Canada.
2023
Construction begins on a new warehouse in St. Marys, Ontario.
2024
Today, Express is marketing to over 8,000 clients across North America and that 1-page flyer has grown into an 140-page online catalogue.


"Our family business was founded on trying to make others happy and helping small and medium Canadian sign shops become profitable. This principle is still the central core to our business model 20 years later. Our customer’s loyalty and personal acquaintances have inspired us daily, and have helped us grow to what we are today."

 

Thank you for your friendship!

Lance & Shari Giesbrecht