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CHRONOLOGY OF THE COMPANY

 Since 1928, DAKOTA BUSINESS CENTER has made it our business to provide the highest level of service possible.  We attribute our growth and success to our sense of tradition and more importantly to our valued customers who have trusted us to support them with their office solution needs.

Old fashion service and support will never go out of style at DAKOTA BUSINESS CENTER

1928  Mr. Carlson opens a small business selling and servicing typewriters.Mr. Carlson's one man operation is named Dakota Typewriter Exchange
1930 Cecil Urban purchases the business and adds mimeograph, dictating, and adding machines to the product offering.
1942 The R.E. Huffman Company (Aberdeen, South Dakota) buys out Mr. Urban.
1943 Fred Gellerman and Charles Basler form a partnership and purchase Dakota Typewriter Exchange.  Copying and duplicating sales and services are added to the product line.
1963  Dakota Typewriter Exchange incorporates.
1965 Charles Basler sells his interest to his partner, Fred Gellerman.  Annual sales exceed $300,000
1968 The company adds cash register systems and enters the electronics age starting with electronic calculators.  Robert E. Kelley is employed as executive vice president
1972 Dakota Typewriter survives the 1972 flood and sales top 1/2 million
1973 All interests in Dakota Typewriter Exchange are purchased by Robert E. Kelley and John D. Sears who joined the family business in 1971.   Word processing systems and OCR readers are sold and supported by the company
1975 Dakota Typewriter follows the post office and moves its downtown location for nearly 50 years in the 700 block of St. Joseph Street east to new facilities in the 300 block of East St. Joseph Street.  The company expands its product offerings to include Sharp Copiers.  David Kaiser joins the company and later becomes service manager. Annual sales close in on $1 million.
1978 Computers and related products are added to the product line
1981 John D. Sears sells his interest and Robert E. Kelley becomes sole owner.  Larry Timmerman become General Manager.
1985 The company expands into the telecommunications market with telephone installations in major government and commercial accounts.
1988  Cash register systems products are expanded to include scanning, inventory control and other computer integrated point of sale (POS) systems products.  Mailing and facsimile systems are also offered for the first time
1993  Carter and Anne Taylor join Dakota Typewriter as stockholders, directors and the management team for Pierre operations.  The Pierre store with 8 employees opens November 1, 1993.   Dakota Typewriter changes its name effective November 1, 1993 to Dakota Business Center
1998 Kathy Harford becomes Manager of Pierre branch.
2004  Anne Taylor assumes job of President and CEO.
2007  Robert E. Kelley, Timothy J. Kelley, Carter M. Taylor and Anne K. Taylor are the current owners and officers of Dakota Typewriter Exchange d/b/a/ Dakota Business Center.   Dakota Business Center is the largest full line office products dealer in our market area, a locally owned major copier dealer  Dakota Business Center has annual sales of $5 million and 35 employees
2008 Dakota Business Center and Kotagraphics Business Solutions become partners April 1, 2008, becoming the only state wide office solutions company to be locally owned and operated out of western South Dakota.  Officers of Dakota Typewriter Exchange d/b/a Dakota Business Center are Robert E. Kelley, Timothy J. Kelley, Carter M. Taylor, Anne K. Taylor, and Carolyn A. Johnson.  Officers of Kotagraphics Business Solutions are Carolyn A. Johnson and Anne K. Taylor.  Expansion covering the entire state of South Dakota and Eastern Wyoming with 46 employees and continued sales growth.