Dale Johnson: ‘No Career Regrets’

Dale Johnson

For nearly 45 years, Dale Johnson has put his heart and soul into Woman’s Hospital in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, working himself up from storeroom clerk to his current position as Graphic Services manager.

“I started working at Woman’s Hospital in 1980, in March, and they had a new machine that they had purchased,” he recalls. “There were no copiers at that time. They had a little offset machine that was described as ‘a secretary could run it,’ but that really wasn’t the case.”

Being handy and “mechanically inclined,” Johnson started working on the machines to help the secretary out, even staying late at work to get things done.

“After about a year, we started putting color ink in it and doing some fancy invitations,” he says.

Within the next few years, Johnson and the rest of the supply chain management team were moved off property to make room for medical facilities. Seeing an opportunity to grow the organization’s printing capabilities, Johnson “was able to talk them into buying a two-color press” for their new space. At that time, his role changed from storeroom clerk to printer.

This was when Woman’s Hospital’s Printing Services operation really began to take off. In the next couple years, Johnson was able to add an employee to his team.

“As we increased our abilities, we became more valuable, and I needed some help because more and more work was coming in,” he says. “I had another person, so I changed my title at that point to printing coordinator.”

In 1992, Printing Services was moved back on site. By 1997, Johnson says, “we were able to start selling printing. I’d been wanting to do it, but we weren’t able to count on our other departments to help us. So finally, when I tried it for the second time, we got our own P.O. Box and our own accounting system … and started selling printing. And we never looked back. We became a profit center. I became print and mail services manager in ’96 - ’97.”

The In-plant Now

Today, Woman’s Hospital Graphic Services takes up nearly 7,000 sq. ft. in what once was the IT department for the hospital, a space the in-plant inherited when Woman’s Hospital built a new campus eight miles down the road in 2012.

The in-plant is well on its way to becoming fully digital, Johnson says, although it does have two two-color offset presses — a Ryobi 3302 and a Heidelberg QM 46.

Last year, Johnson says, the operation transitioned from having two color copiers and one black-and-white copier to three color copiers. It currently boasts a new Canon imagePRESS V1350, an imagePRESS V1000, and an older imagePRESS C10010VP.

Graphic Services is now run by 13 employees, many of whom have been there for decades.

“I have six team members that have worked here over 20 years,” Johnson says. “In fact, we have people that have worked here that work at other departments in the hospital now that have been here longer than that.”

Despite not having a dedicated salesperson, Woman’s Hospital Graphic Services markets its offerings well. Of course, it maintains a page touting its services on the hospital’s website and on the intranet, and hangs posters around the facilities explaining how it can help with print projects. Woman’s Hospital employees make up a good number of the in-plant’s customers, he says.

“They all come here now and get all their stuff done,” he says. “You know, invitations for their weddings and stuff like that.”

Additionally, the in-plant started providing services at a “major discount” to local nonprofits early on.

Johnson explains that they wanted to support these organizations in their print projects to “be a good community partner for them.”

Leaving His Mark

Though many of his employees may have taken the job because of the benefits of working at a hospital, Johnson’s presence and guidance in the in-plant surely played a role in keeping them with the in-plant for as long as they have been there.

“My leadership style is just [by] example,” he says. “Make sure I’m here before anybody comes in, stay late till they leave.”

As evidence of his hard work and dedication, Johnson was nominated by a colleague for the BEE Award, which he received just before his 44th work anniversary in March 2024. The BEE Award recognizes Woman’s Hospital employees outside of nursing for their valuable contributions to the organization.

Even outside of the hospital, Johnson has made an impact on the in-plant printing community. Several years ago, he served as vice president of the Louisiana chapter of the In-plant Printing and Mailing Association. Plus, the in-plant itself, under his leadership, has won several In-Print awards over the years.

Nonetheless, Johnson has stayed humble and appreciates what he gets to do every day.

“Woman’s Hospital has given me a very, very good life,” Johnson says. “Probably the … thing that I’m most proud of is the people I got to work with over the years.”

Looking back on his career, Johnson says he definitely made the right decision by going into printing.

“I have no career regrets; it’s been great,” Johnson proclaims. “I wish I could have been a doctor or a lawyer or an astronaut — but no, this has afforded me to be able to raise my kids.”

What the Future Holds

With 44 years — and counting — behind him, Johnson says he doesn’t see himself working past 67, giving him just a few years to start planning for retirement.

Once he retires, he looks forward to getting more involved with his church and spending time with his family — both his wife and two sons, as well as his extended family. Most of Johnson’s family resides in the Baton Rouge area where he’s lived his whole life, but some of his relatives live in other parts of the country.

“My sister and all her children and grandchildren are out there [near Atlanta, Georgia],” Johnson explains, “and my father-in-law is getting very elderly; he lives in Texas. So, it’s very difficult to get away from work and go and visit more than a weekend.”

Once he retires, he’ll have the time to travel and stay for much longer.

In his spare time, Johnson enjoys woodworking and hopes to do more of that when he retires. Some of his recent projects include a ladder for a loft bed and a couple of worktables. He’s even done some woodworking for the in-plant.

“Our print shop’s filled with all the woodworking stuff I’ve done,” he says. “Tables and shelves and
lots of things.”

When all is said and done, Johnson will leave behind a huge legacy at Woman’s Hospital Graphic Services upon his retirement. In more than four decades, he has nurtured the operation from a single press intended to be run by a secretary to a full-blown print department. He’s poured his time, effort, and heart into building the in-plant into what it has become today.