Business Q&A with the owners of New River Engraving

Jay and Becci Nagle have owned and operated New River Engraving since 1993. Photo by Travis Williams/The Burgs

Jay and Becci Nagle

Owners of New River Engraving

Ages: Both 53

Family: Jason, Zach, Issac and  Cam

Business started: 1993, current location 1995.

What they do: New River Engraving specializes in custom engraving of awards, gifts, signage, memorials, glassware, promotional items, as well as office and desk items. More extensive information regarding their services is available at www.newriverengraving.com.

Q: How did you get into this business?

A: Jay Nagle: My best friend’s dad had a shop … when I was in high school, and I used to go help him engrave so we could get to the golf course a little quicker. …  And then when I went to Tech, I needed a job, went to CMT [Specialty Sports] and got lucky to get a job at CMT because they needed an engraver. I worked at CMT for a while and did insurance for 10 or 12 years.
Becci Nagle: He kept saying, ‘I want an engraving business,’ and I’m thinking, ‘There’s no way we can make a living at this because that was when everything was hand engraved. … There’s no way you can do the quantity.’
Jay Nagle: The ADA [Americans with Disabilities Act] had just come out, which meant signs now had to have braille. So I was going like, ‘Wow, there is going to be a big market, and there’s a lot of places that already have signs that are going to need new signs.’ So just kind of one thing after another.

Q: What’s your favorite thing about the business?

A: Becci Nagle: Working with family — our kids, our grand kids, our god-kids.
Jay Nagle: That’s it, because we’re all family here. I mean Andrew and Chris are our god-kids.

Q: What is the key to your success?

A: Jay Nagle: Customer service, no doubt. These guys bend over backwards to take care of our customers, and that’s the biggest thing.
Becci Nagle: And not a ton of competition, either. There’s other engraving places, … but there’s not a lot of engraving places.

Q: What ways does your company give back to the community?

A: Jay Nagle: We have a lot of people who come and ask for donations, so we donate a lot. … Like today, the Special Olympics Tournament at the Blacksburg Country Club. … We donated the plaques for it. Lots of stuff like that.
Becci Nagle: And we’ll give them a reduced price because you know the church and the schools. We try to work with the schools to give them a better price and donate.
Jay Nagle: It’s part of our tithing. We truly look at what we do for the church and for the churches as a way we can tithe back.

Q: What might people be surprised to learn about your business?

A: Jay Nagle: There are so many things that you would think of that you can get engraved. They’ll bring a lot of different stuff in. Everything from urns, people will bring their treasured something, they’ll bring their grandmother’s old brush. … or their little cup they got as a child and now they’re a mom and they want to put their child’s name on the same little cup. We do a lot of pictures. You can put pictures on anything now.
Becci Nagle: That’s probably what most people comment on. Sublimation. Where we can put either full color or an actual picture on a blanket. We’ve got them on plaques; you can put them on coffee cups. And most people don’t know what that process is, so when you tell somebody you can get a full-color plaque and they’re just like, ‘Oh, I don’t think I can afford that.’ That’s actually a cheaper process than some of our others where we actually engrave.

Q: What do you like about having a business in the New River Valley?

A: Jay Nagle: I’d say the people because I came to Tech and I’ve never wanted to go anywhere else. I just love the people here.
Becci Nagle: And it’s a little more laid back. You’re not like stuck out in ‘hicksville,’ but you’re also not in a big city, but you can get to a big city or get to stuff.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply