A Commitment To In-plants
Dave Schlueter has been intrigued by in-plants since he was in school. So it's no wonder he's made his mark on the industry.
By Mike Llewellyn
It didn't take long for Dave Schlueter, director of printing at Piper Jaffray, to learn printing would be his trade.
When he was young, his dad would occasionally take him to work at Jensens Printing in Minneapolis, and he remembers feeling awestruck by the huge presses. That sense of wonder led him to major in graphic arts at the city's Dunwoody College of Technology, where he also earned an IPMA Student of the Year Award. It wasn't long before in-plant printing became his life's work.
"It's a great old trade with a lot of history behind it," he says.
He got his start in the field working the night shift at Gopher State Litho as a press operator. But he only stuck around for six months because his diligence, combined with the IPMA award, earned him a post running a MultiLith at Piper Jaffray's in-house facility. He's been with the company ever since.
An In-plant Career Begins
"In-plant printing always intrigued me," he says. "I liked the opportunity to get into in-plants—and to get a day job."
In 1981, after just two years on the press, Schlueter found himself heading up the entire facility at the investment firm.
"At first, staffing was the major challenge," he says. "We were pretty much a black ink shop at the time, so the challenge was to bring staff morale around and to start positioning the shop to grow into color printing."
Schlueter credits his years of service as an artillery sergeant in the U.S. Army with giving him the leadership know-how to bring the in-plant up to par.
"Essentially, it's about setting standards and sticking to them," says Schlueter.
Sticking to those standards has brought the seven-employee facility a long way. Schlueter says he's most proud of simply watching the importance of his in-plant grow within Piper Jaffray.
"Over the years we've represented a significant resource," he says. "And we've saved a lot of money."
The equipment that keeps the shop purring along includes three Hamada presses, a brand new Xerox DocuTech NP135, a Canon CLC 5000 and a Risograph GR 3770 digital duplicator.
"That's the most productive piece in the shop," says Schlueter of the GR 3770. "Excellent quality."
Staying Ahead Of The Game
The new digital equipment is designed to keep up with the shifting needs of the company.
"The nature of the workload is changing. Things that were traditionally printed offset have gone electronic," says Schlueter.
He explains that the company is looking to move away from an offset operation entirely. Forms printing has become an online affair, and research reports that used to require upwards of 5,000 copies are now being e-mailed.
"We're going to do a study to see if we want to keep offset. We consider ourselves a two-color, mid-sized printer, but it's a constant struggle to even see the work," says Schlueter, explaining that the in-plant doesn't enjoy a right of first refusal.
Building A Digital Defense
To combat the thinning offset work that's draining revenue from the in-plant, Schlueter is building up a defense in the digital arena.
"Our company is very decentralized, so we see our copy center as a growing business. I'd like to see us printing from files from all 110 branch offices," he says.
As Piper Jaffray spins off from its parent company, U.S. Bancorp, Schlueter feels there is probably a large amount of work bound for the in-plant
"This all involves a logo change and a name change, so we plan to do all the letterheads and stationery," he says.
To unwind after a long week, Schlueter says he likes to take his wife of 26 years, Barb, and their kids Michael and Caitlin, 16 and 11, out for a quiet weekend.
"I've got a little northern property where I like to fish and read," he says.
And if printing seems like the best fit for him, it may not be the only one. A recent trip to the IPMA conference in Salt Lake City reminded him of a childhood ambition. Schlueter, who brought his family along, got to see dozens of freight trains pulling in and out of a switchyard outside the city.
"I always wanted to be a railroad engineer," he muses. But then, who would steer the in-plant out of the switch to digital?
