A Manager On The Move
John Weston has worked all over the country, but he's always managed stay in the in-plant environment.
by Bob Neubauer
John E. Weston III is an in-plant lifer. Now working in his sixth in-plant, the affable 53-year-old explains his dedication simply:
"That's the only thing I ever wanted to do," he says.
Weston's career path has led him all over the country, bringing him finally to Houston where he is now manager of Printing Services for the Metropolitan Transit Authority. He and his staff of seven have made great progress in bringing work back in-house and saving the organization money.
East Coast Beginnings
Weston grew up in Philadelphia, but soon after graduating from high school in 1966, his mother sent him to Ohio to live with family. He got his first in-plant job in Cleveland, at Ohio Bell. Weston took to printing immediately. He liked it so much he found an additional job working at the in-plant for Bobby Brooks Women's Fashions.
"It was a pretty good introduction into the printing industry," he says.
After a few years there, though, college called, and Weston followed a cousin's trail down to Bishop College in Dallas. To pay for his education, he took a job in the school's in-plant, where he became assistant director in charge of student workers.
Weston graduated in 1973 with a major in business administration and a minor in economics. He returned to Ohio where he was hired as a printing coordinator with the state's print operation. For 12 years he coordinated print buying there before leaving to do print consulting for four years.
The Ohio winters made him long for the south, though, and the urge to relocate hit once again. Since Weston's wife Jean was from New Orleans, the couple headed to Louisiana, where Weston became assistant director of campus services at Louisiana State University.
He was in charge of the copier management program, which included 480 copiers, three duplication centers, the coin-operated copiers, and paper and toner distribution. Eventually Weston became associate director of graphic services and took on outside purchases and business communications.
After six years at LSU, he and his wife decided to make one more move. They had a lot of friends in Houston, so they started looking for work there. Weston's wife immediately got a teaching job, and soon after that he landed a job with Metro.
Weston's first task was to increase the amount of work going to the in-plant. He sat down with the marketing people and offered his help.
"I was able to share with them, based on the background that I had, things that would make their job easier," he says. As a result, he convinced them the in-plant could handle their work. "We've captured a lot of their work back," he notes.
In addition, he used his copier management experience to reduce the number of copiers in other Metro departments and bring that work into the in-plant.
"We probably bumped our impressions from 300 or so thousand a month up to about a million in no time," he says.
In addition to numerous forms, Printing Services prints flyers, newsletters and Metro passes, among other items. The passes require tight security, so Metro police are stationed in the in-plant to watch production.
Weston is proud of the mark he's made at Metro.
"The biggest challenge is just convincing the powers that be that we are a worthy printing facility," he says. He feels his tireless efforts to market his shop have paid off. "Print shops close because people don't know what you do down there," he maintains.
"I'm delighted that the staff I have has been willing to accept the responsibility of bringing this work back in-house, with the equipment that we had available, in order to justify us getting the opportunities for new equipment," he adds.
Outside of the shop, Weston is a center fielder in two fast-pitch softball leagues. The games take him all over Texas. He's also been known to pull some monster catfish out of a local fishing hole from time to time.
