A Tribute to Former Public Printer Michael DiMario

Michael DiMario

Michael F. DiMario, former head of the U.S. Government Publishing Office, passed away on July 5th in Annapolis, Maryland, at the age of 87. On November 22, 2002, as Mr. DiMario prepared to leave his post as the 23rd Public Printer of the United States, Congressman Steny Hoyer of Maryland presented a tribute to Mr. DiMario before Congress. Here are his remarks, as they appeared in the Congressional Record for that date.

Mike’s achievements as Public Printer are numerous and represent a sea-change in the way GPO produces and distributes government information to the American people.

Mike’s preeminent achievement has been the establishment and phenomenal growth of GPO Access (www.gpo.gov/gpoaccess), the GPO website established pursuant to a landmark 1993 act of Congress passed with his enthusiastic support. GPO Access today makes about 225,000 Federal titles available on-line, free of charge, to anyone with a computer and access to the Internet. Members of the public today use GPO Access to retrieve an average of 31 million documents each month, over a million every day; more than 1.1 billion Federal documents have been retrieved via GPO Access since it went live in 1994.

The GPO site also serves as host to 19 other Federal websites, including the Supreme Court’s, and the databases GPO prepares for GPO Access are indispensable to the Congress’s prominent legislative website, THOMAS, which is operated by the Library of Congress. GPO Access was the primary site for several major Federal-document releases of the past decade, including the Microsoft anti-trust decision, the Supreme Court’s decision in the Florida election cases, and the Starr Report, as well as all annual Federal budgets. GPO Access has won multiple awards from the on-line, library, legal, government, and educational communities, and will undoubtedly continue to revolutionize the distribution of government information.

During his service, DiMario also strongly supported and successfully implemented the Congress’ policy decision to transition the Federal Depository Library Program to a primarily electronic format. He worked closely with the library community to implement this transition in a way that met Congress’ goals of economy and efficiency while continuing to serve the needs of the public. Today, more than 60 percent of the new titles going into depository libraries are electronic, and the program has realized sufficient savings to underwrite the costs of GPO Access without requiring substantial new appropriations.

DiMario also brought other new technologies to GPO, streamlining its operations. Notable among these advances are the capacity to move print copy directly from computer to plate, which is now used to produce 90–95 percent of all plates used in GPO; rollfed on-demand printing; and new, smaller, more efficient presses. DiMario also enhanced GPO’s electronic communications capabilities through establishment of an agency web site to facilitate online posting of most bid solicitations for printing contracts, and an office-wide Intranet. Working closely with the House, Senate and other Federal agencies, DiMario oversaw the successful Y2K transition at GPO with no disruption of service.

On his watch, In- Plant Graphics magazine chose GPO as the top in-plant in the country for four consecutive years, and in 1999, PC Week magazine hailed GPO as one of the top technology innovators in the United States. GPO has received ‘‘clean’’ financial opinions on all independent audits conducted during DiMario’s tenure, and a comprehensive management audit in 1998 found that GPO has strong support among its ‘‘customers,’’ i.e., the Congress, Federal agencies, and the public.

During last year’s anthrax crisis, DiMario offered GPO facilities for the use of various House and Senate offices, and he made available GPO’s loading docks to the Capitol Police when Congress’ own delivery screening facilities were unusable. Since that time, he has worked to establish off-site printing and web capabilities to prevent disruptions of service in future emergencies.

Throughout his tenure, DiMario has strived to cut costs at GPO, and as a consequence, GPO’s appropriations have remained relatively flat. Total personnel strength has declined by more than 35 percent since 1993, and now stands at the lowest level in over a century. It is a testament to Mike DiMario’s leadership that he achieved the reduction through attrition with no significant workforce dislocation. During his tenure, DiMario worked closely with GPO’s unions to reach reasonable wage contracts and ensure the successful implementation of new technology and new ways of doing things.

Through changing times, Mike stoutly defended the GPO against shortsighted proposals to reinvest or privatize its operations, regardless of their source. He clearly articulated how valuable GPO is to Congress’s legislative operations, to the economical and effective procurement of printing for executive agencies, and to the public’s ability to access Government information in a comprehensive, equitable manner. In the past several months, his defense of GPO against the ill-advised printing proposal of the Office of Management and Budget has been just as determined. The fact that GPO continues to operate today is due in no small part to the fact that Mike believes in the agency and never shirked from defending it when necessary.

Mike DiMario has had the 4th longest consecutive term of service as Public Printer since it began operations in 1861. He resides in Bowie, Maryland, so he’s not just my friend, he’s also my constituent. As Mike departs the GPO for a well-deserved retirement following 40 years of Federal service, I am sure my colleagues join me in wishing him good luck, Godspeed, and offering him the thanks of a grateful Nation for a job well done.