A Charlotte Turnaround Tale

AS ALVIN B. Griffin sees it, he couldn't have landed in a more ideal place than Charlotte, N.C. The Manassas, Va., native and his family moved to North Carolina in 1992, when his wife was transferred there for a job with IBM.

Griffin, an in-plant veteran and current director of the Graphic Production Center for the Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools, found the area to be a great place to raise his two children, pursue his love of riding motorcycles, and take on the challenge of turning around troubled in-house printing facilities.

His interest in printing dates back to high school, where Griffin took a communications class that taught printing, silk screening, electronics and drafting. He enrolled in advanced printing classes in 11th and 12th grade, and recalls catching a fortunate break upon graduation, when the Prince William County, Va., school board decided to open its own in-plant.

"My teacher got a call saying they were looking for his best student," Griffin says. "From there I got a phone call and we opened up Prince William School Board's shop together in 1976. I came out of high school and had my feet right in the fire."

Griffin points out that he learned more about printing in his first few months on the job than he did the entire time he was in high school. The shop was set up in a space shared with the school district's bus garage. It was so hot they had to run the air conditioning year round. Griffin got the in-plant started with old Multi 1250 presses, and stayed there for five years before moving across town to work for Prince William County's government print shop.

Upon his arrival in North Carolina, Griffin spent a few months doing special projects for local commercial printers. For someone with an in-plant background, this was quite a change.

"I realized in a hurry that it was not for me," Griffin notes.

It wasn't long before Griffin hooked on at the in-plant for Winthrop University in South Carolina, where he stayed for seven years. He then heard of an opening at the in-plant for Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools, which was on the verge of closing after the manager there passed away and the shop went without management for about six months.

"I came here knowing that I had a year to straighten things out or it was going to fold," Griffin contends. "The place was a mess, and I don't mind saying that."

Turning Things Around

Griffin got started by ordering the removal of three tractor-trailer loads of equipment that was collecting dust. He was also surprised to see that there was only one computer in the entire shop and no management information system.

"Now there are 31 [computer] screens that we use every day," Griffin says. "We now have the right mix of technology and human resources."

In his first year at the helm of the school district's shop, the return on investment for the district was $56,000; six years later, that figure ballooned to $1.1 million.

The in-plant currently has 14 full-time employees, but is on a growth curve after reaching an agreement with the County of Charlotte Mecklenburg to produce print jobs for everything from the Boy Scouts to the Red Cross. The county's print work previously was done by a facilities management (FM) firm. The in-plant started taking on the county's work in November, and already has captured all of the print jobs that the FM was doing.

"We all realize that success is going to be in being a community partner," Griffin explains. "We need to be able to expand our operation to the point where it is not reliant on taxpayer funds."

To help handle the additional jobs from the county as well as a growing workload from the school district, Griffin reveals that the in-plant plans to install an HP Indigo digital press in August, followed by a second one in July 2011.

"We have that much need that we know we can support two additional devices," he says.

When he is not manning the in-plant or spending time with his family, Griffin is hitting the open road in North Carolina on his motorcycle, enjoying the scenery his adopted home provides.

"The great thing about Charlotte is that you can ride for five minutes and you are just out in the middle of the country," he remarks. "It is like a different world. You have beaches in one direction and mountains in the other." IPG