2026 Women in Signs: Dee Burkhardt

Dee Burkhardt
Owner, Signarama (Fond du Lac, Appleton and Menomonee Falls, WI)
and YESCO Wisconsin (Fond du Lac, WI)

DEE BURKHARDT REMEMBERS driving across town to send a fax when she first worked in signs, 43 years ago. She started out as a part-timer in her stepfather’s sign company, cutting and handpainting foam letters, signage and vehicle graphics in their two-car garage. When computerization was on the horizon, she persuaded her mother to purchase a Gerber Signmaker IVB (4B) vinyl cutter, and everything changed.

“I’ve always loved the printers and cutters. I’ve always been an equipment junkie and computer junkie, a tech junkie all the way around,” Burkhardt says.

She eventually opened her own sign company that she converted into a Signarama franchise because she appreciated franchising’s ability to share skills and information. After she had purchased the YESCO franchise in Fond du Lac, the owner of Signarama Appleton came to her and said, “This is just not for me. I want you to take it.” The almost same circumstance led her to acquire Signarama Menomonee Falls. If Yesco propelled her business approach, Signarama was a gamechanger.

Wayfinding signage for the Fond du Lac Loop, a street trail through the city and one of Signarama Fond du Lac’s recent projects.

“It just strategically was the right thing for us to do, but again [the companies] had owners who absolutely loved their employees. I think I had a reputation being very, very passionate about signage but also being a really good employer,” Burkhardt says.

As the owner of four sign companies, Burkhardt mostly focuses on the business side and keeping employees at all locations on the same page: respecting, working with and playing to each other’s strengths while adopting the same company culture. “Walking into a company that’s already functioning, taking over and going, ‘Okay, now you’re part of something completely different, bigger and you need to do things our way’ has been challenging,” she says.

Still, her favorite aspect of working in signs is helping her and other shops grow, and she watches young professionals entering the sign industry with excitement. “I see so many young, smart people in the Signarama and Yesco networks that are coming in, who are going to take the industry to the next level,” she says, also enthusing about AI implementation in signs.

“I’m absolutely obsessed with how our buying habits are changing with AI, how our customers are changing, what we can do to adapt, the speed at which business is being done, how to compete with all of this change,” Burkhardt adds. “I think business as we know it is going to be very different in five years with AI.”

Along with technological changes throughout her four decades in the industry, Burkhardt has also encountered many instances where she is challenged as a woman in a male-dominated world. “You stand out, you have to be sharp, you have to know the industry,” she says. “I think as a woman I have to work harder. It’s really hard to outwork me; that has been my biggest asset, my work ethic … Did I lose projects because I was female? Probably.” But is this owner of a quartet of signshops sweating that? Certainly not.

She advises constant research and learning for other women in the sign industry and those seeking to enter it: “Come on in, know your stuff, study the industry, leverage other women and other people.”