A long-time in-plant manager reminisces about his in-plant’s fate after his company merged with another.

By Mike Renn

Even though I saw the closing coming for years, I was still stunned when it happened. For almost a quarter of a century, our operation had won every battle we’d fought—and we had fought many. They were glorious wins, narrow scraps and grueling campaigns. We battled commercial printers, facilities management providers, copier glut, out-sourcing philosophers and even our decaying orbit as a merged satellite operation to a corporate in-plant. We always strived to be the best, because we had to be. Now it was coming to an end.