Giving Back: ACI Continues its Support of College Photography Program

Cedar Falls, Iowa-based American Color Imaging, which makes a variety of products and services to the graphics and sign markets, professional photography and others involved in fine arts, continues its support of the Hawkeye Community College’s photography program in nearby Waterloo, Iowa.

According to Mark Lane, ACI’s CEO and co-owner of the company with his wife, Lisa, it was Lisa’s father, Donald Lohnes, who founded ACI in 1967 and also assisted Hawkeye in launching its photography program. Today, Lane says, the program is known as one of the more outstanding of its types in the nation, attracting students from all over.

ACI presents each incoming class to the program with a “schwag bag” of products they’ll need for the course, and ACI also provides a scholarship program for students that excel their first year, with the scholarships going to provide consumables and other materials that the students will need to produce the work that will help them graduate. The company also provides a leg-up to students who are excelling in their schoolwork but struggling financially.

ACI also has two sister companies, backgroundtown.com and imagebuggy.com, that serve certain niches within the sign and graphics markets.