A Labor He Loves

Since childhood, Mike Sprayberry has loved printing. His enthusiasm has helped First Tennessee Bank's in-plant prosper.

YOU MIGHT say printing is in Mike Sprayberry's blood, but even if it isn't it's definitely under his skin—and he couldn't be happier.

Sprayberry, 51, is print shop manager at First Tennessee Bank, in Memphis, just down the road from his birth place of Covington, Tenn. When he was eight, his mother remarried and moved the family of two boys and five girls to Memphis, where they began working in their step-father's print shop.

It was there that Sprayberry first caught the printing bug and received the ink stains that would color the rest of his life.

"I started out hand collating around the table," laughs Sprayberry, recalling the most ancient of technologies. "It was fun. My brother and I would collate and my sisters would saddle stitch."

In 1966, Sprayberry graduated Trezedant High School. Despite fond memories and the promise of a good career, he left Memphis to join the Marines.

After six years in the service, two tours of Vietnam, and three wounds, Sprayberry decided to leave the Marines and join his step-father and brother in the printing business that his step-grandfather, "Papa Bruce," established in 1892.

In 1982, after 10 years of working side by side with his brother and step-father, Sprayberry decided to strike out on his own and opened up his own shop

By 1986, Sprayberry's family growth had outpaced that of his business, so when one of his clients, First Tennessee Bank, offered him a job with benefits, he took it and ran—all the way to the top.

Quick Ascent

With nearly three decades of experience behind him Sprayberry quickly climbed from bindery clerk to assistant manager to print shop manager.

"I just started going up the ladder," Sprayberry explains. "My boss knew that I had a lot of printing knowledge. So it wasn't long from bindery to an assistant manager's position."

In 1994, when Sprayberry was promoted to print shop manager, he took that knowledge and focused it on improving the in-plant's customer service performance.

"When I came in, this operation had a bad taste in its mouth," Sprayberry observes. "They had the attitude, 'I'll get to it when I can.' Well, that doesn't work."

Sprayberry went to work though, and quickly extended the in-plant's output from between 600,000 and 800,000 impressions a month to a healthy 1.3 million.

Sprayberry says that by selling the in-plant to internal customers and proving it could satisfy all their needs, he was able to increase the in-plant's service and value to the company and protect it against the threat of outsourcing .

"In this business, if you can't do it somebody else will," declares Sprayberry. "If you sit still, you're stagnant."

Fortunately for his clients, Mike Sprayberry rarely sits still.

In addition to nearly doubling the number of impressions created each month, Sprayberry's crew of five has begun producing more two-color work and is also developing its print on-demand capabilities.

To help with this, the in-plant implemented a Xerox DocuTech 6135 to keep it ahead of the competition. ForSprayberry it's not a matter of if his in-plant will go digital, he explains, but how and when.

As much as he loves his work, Sprayberry admits he does take time to indulge his passion for hunting.

"Out there it's always hurry, hurry, hurry," says Sprayberry of the working world. "You get up on a deer stand and you can get away from the world's problems."

Not that he has many.

Sprayberry says he loves his job and has never thought about doing anything else.

"I love getting up and going to work," he admits. "Every day it's something different." IPG

Mike Sprayberry has been with First Tennessee Bank for 14 years, but he's worked in the printing industry since he was a child.

by Allan Martin Kemler