Traverse City’s Britten, Inc. has purchased Grand Rapids-based JAROB, marking yet another acquisition for a company experiencing an incredible year.

Known by many locals as “the banner company,” Britten has accelerated its growth on several fronts, from acquiring other businesses to expanding its services beyond mere banners and signs to quietly assembling the largest manufacturing campus in Traverse City.

Britten is announcing today the acquisition of JAROB, a Grand Rapids based printer of signs and displays primarily for large retailers and grocery chains. JAROB’s 60 employees will now become Britten Décor.

Also this month Britten acquired two industrial buildings on Cass Road formerly owned by Waste Management; one is 12,000 square feet and the other 18,000 square feet.

Those acquisitions come on the heels of the purchase of Mark Augustine’s metal fabricating and stamping business last fall. About the same time, Britten also acquired Traverse City-based Modzel Printing and also closed on the 61,000 square foot former Eagle Picher manufacturing building at Cass and Hartman Roads.

Those buildings join several others along Cass Road south of South Airport that now makeup the Britten campus.

All told, the campus now includes an original 35,000 square foot building, a second headquarters building of 80,000 square feet, the former Kellogg Wholesale building at 113,000 square feet, and the former Eagle Picher facility and two former Waste Management buildings to the south.

Inside those buildings and in satellite locations around the country, everything from giant murals to auto dealership displays to signs, banners, t-shirts, bags and tents are conceived, created, and shipped around the world. The work of artisans, salespeople and fabricators on Cass Road is being seen by millions in shopping malls, football stadiums, trade shows, and from giant building wraps in Manhattan to the slopes of the Sochi Winter Olympics.

President Paul Britten tells The Ticker that much of the company’s success is due to creative minds of his employees, many of whom have been along for the ride for a long time.

Consider Jamie Ward, who came on more than a decade ago at an entry level. Today, Ward leads complex installations nationwide; recently he and a Britten team installed giant signage throughout the Colorado Rockies’ baseball stadium and along a Formula One racetrack in Austin. Now he’s headed to Miami to “wrap” a 20-story office building.

The company began in the 1980s when TC native Britten, then a University of Detroit architecture student, began hand-painting banners. Today, his ventures include Britten Banners, Britten Décor, Britten MetalWorks, Britten Threads, Britten Services, and MasterTent. 335 individuals are employed by Britten.

“We’re really becoming a true studio,” says Britten of the company’s recent growth. “The definition of a studio is the workplace of an artist, and we’re creative people who have come together to add some color to the world.”