About Us

Thanks for your interest and welcome to Service Tectonics Inc, one of the only full service (we do nearly everything “In House”) companies in the Pad Printing Industry. Our aim is to provide you with Quality and Service that you can’t get anywhere else, and with over 150 years of combined experience, our highly skilled staff does exactly that.

Founded by Frank Dalton in 1964, STI is a family owned business. Being a family-owned company has ensured the same values, principles, goals, and mission that inspired Frank have continued on to this day. Frank was able to instill in his Son (Steve) and his grandson (Jon Dalton, the current CEO), that same set of ethics and values that have built STI into one of the more respected companies in the Pad Printing business.

In 1964 STI began building standard and custom machines, this quickly expanded into multiple product lines of Service Tectonics branded Pad Printing Machines. Being an industry leader in designing “Poka Yoke” (self-error correction) manufacturing techniques into our machines the STI brand machines quickly gained favor.

Keeping up with technological advances in pad printing is a bigger challenge today than ever before, but as technology advances so do we. STI was the first company (ever) to design, build and implement a 6-axis robot for pad printing (you can see photos and a video of this machine in the gallery). Also, in response to our clients’ needs, we continue to develop new lines of standard STI branded printing machines.

Our designers/technicians excel in helping clients problem solve, whether it’s a unique/difficult substrate (part to be printed), contour issues or special production needs.

Pad printing is part art and part science. Not every company has the desire, need or ability to purchase a machine, choose the right cliché, ink, and pad let alone print successfully. While you don’t have to be an expert in the printing process or be a chemist, you do need to take time to learn how the practice works and how to control the variables involved with each process to succeed. To answer the needs of companies who didn’t have a need for such an investment, in 1989, Steve Dalton started a sister company named “Images” so we could do “in house” printing for those clients that could benefit from such a service. Today Images, a successful entity of its own, occupies a portion of the STI factory here in Adrian Michigan and is an integral part of the STI “full in-house” service.