Chas Allen began his photo career in the late 60's.in commercial photography. Coming to California in early '82, he applied his photo experience with an early graphic arts background into a "rush service" in Los Angeles catering to ad agencies and design studios.

Eleven years later, he found his way to Desert Hot Springs. He teamed up with Sharron Kenty who wanted to launch a photo lab service. Since the area was already teeming with one-hour labs, they decided to offer commercial lab services to commercial users.

Beginning in June of 1994, in No. Palm Springs, the Photo Colorgraphix story has been growing every year. Most recently, in 2002, it moved to Thousand Palms, CA. to a new and expanded facility.

Besides offering all types of photo enlarging and other traditional photo services,ColorGrafix has added many digital services, including hi res scanning, wide format digital printing, specialty mounting and lamination, and product photography for use in advertising layouts and brochure design.

Chas began attending Desert Camera Club meetings in the spring of '93 and became program chairman during the second year. He handled the projector, worked every year on the photo salon, and generally was a greeter and raconteur to many of the members during the coffee break. He stood in as vice president in ’98 and was president the following year, when he also took over the Riverside County Date Festival photo salon.