'A Natural Manager'

This month IPG talks to Larry Williams, at Fireman's Fund, who entered the printing industry by chance and has loved it ever since.

Fresh out of Sonoma State University, armed with degrees in geography and business management, Larry Williams had no idea what he was getting himself into when he walked into a copy shop back in 1979.

"I went into a print shop to get my resume printed," Williams recalls. "They had a typesetting machine but they didn't have a typesetter, and I said, 'well, I need a job. If you give me the manual I can learn how to run that machine.' I came back the next day and they hired me. That's how I started in the printing business."

Now, 20 years after that fortuitous beginning, Williams is the manager of the 20-employee in-plant at Fireman's Fund Insurance, in Petaluma, Calif., north of San Francisco—and he wouldn't trade it for the world.

"The fast pace of the business, that's attractive to me," he says. "There's never any slow period. Something's always happening."

And certainly a lot has happened in his 15 years at Fireman's Fund. Williams recalls that when he started as shop supervisor, the in-plant did only paper plate duplicating of forms, stationery and manuals. But in the late '80s things began to change.

"It was obvious to us, because of the [coming] digital era, that forms were going away, black-and-white work was was declining," he says.

To keep operating, Williams knew the in-plant would have to take on new types of work. So he and his staff convinced upper management to purchase two-color press equipment, and the shop began printing the company's four-color work. Today, four- and six-color jobs account for up to 65 percent of the in-plant's revenue, Williams says. Very little printing gets sent outside.

"We print 95 percent of what we are capable of printing," Williams declares. Of the $1.9 million of printing the in-plant handles each year, only $150,000 gets sent to outside printers, he adds.

Mechanically Inclined

Right from Williams' first printing job he has proven himself adept at numerous tasks. He followed up his post-college stint in the print shop with a job repairing equipment for Multigraphics. From there he became the in-plant manager for a software company. After that he managed equipment acquisition and maintenance for a chain of seven quick print shops.

Above even his mechanical inclinations, though, Williams feels he has a way with people.

"I feel I'm a natural manager of people, so when this opportunity at Fireman's Fund became available, it was very attractive to me," he says.

In his 15 years with the company, Williams has managed to keep the in-plant up to date, while overcoming outsourcing challenges. In 1989 he instituted a full chargeback system.

Williams takes pride in the high-quality marketing brochures and presentation folders that the shop prints for Fireman's Fund's independent agents all over the country. He's also proud of his dedicated employees, several of whom have been with the in-plant for more than 20 years.

Out of the office, Williams can't quite forget about printing. He is president of the recently formed San Francisco chapter of the International Publishing Management Association.

With his two children about to graduate from high school, Williams' involvement as a basketball and softball coach is diminishing, but he still enjoys taking his boat out for some bass fishing in area lakes. He hopes to cast his line in some Minnesota waters after the upcoming IPMA 99 conference in Minneapolis this May.

Bob Neubauer can be contacted at:editor.ipg@napco.com.