Doing Well While Doing Good

A lifelong printer, Tony Torone not only loves his trade, but he loves the fact that his work is helping paralyzed veterans.

by W. Eric Martin

Tony Torone loves his job as manager of the Eastern Paralyzed Veterans Association's in-plant. He gets along great with his employees, he knows he's giving his clients—and his clients' clients—valuable service, and he works only 10 minutes from the house he shares with his wife of 32 years. He's spent more than 40 years in the printing industry, and he would do it all over again in a second.

Jealous yet?

Torone's love of printing is infectious—which makes sense, as he's been carrying the printing gene for decades. His father worked as a typographer for newspapers in New York, and Torone visited his dad on weekends.

"I was always drawn to the presses," he says. "I got ink in the blood, and it's still there."

Already set on a life in print, Torone received his first training at the New York School of Printing, a vocational high school in his native Brooklyn. As was its custom, the school found Torone a job during his senior year, but that job merely pointed out the weakness of his initial training.

"All of my classes were in letterpress," he says, "and by the time I graduated in 1960, letterpress was on its way out."

Still, other than two years of army service, Torone stayed employed in the Manhattan printing business, moving up the line as he learned bigger and more complicated machines.

"I just 'graduated' myself with experience," he says; sometimes he got promotions within a shop to a new multi-color press and sometimes he moved to a new shop.

In 1983, Torone and a fellow employee started a 6,000-square-foot commercial shop, Stantone Graphics, in Manhattan. The two opened the shop with four presses and no customers, but their former employer fed them trade work, and before long they stood on their own.

"The competition was tremendous, and turnaround time of the job was always a pressure," says Torone. Doing work for CVS, the New York Stock Exchange, and numerous ad agencies, Stantone Graphics specialized in critical color work and constantly had graphic designers looking over their shoulders to O.K. proofs.

A Labor Of Love

After 13 years, Torone accepted a buyout from his co-owner and sent out resumes now rich with both press and management experience. The Eastern Paralyzed Veterans Association, located in the Queens suburb of Woodside, hired him to run its new in-plant.

"They had started this plant six months prior [to hiring me] and tried to run it with the head of the mail room, but he wasn't getting jobs out on time," says Torone. This was no surprise since he lacked both print experience and proper equipment.

While attacking the three-week print backlog, Torone began to upgrade equipment.

"When I came in, I found a two-color duplicator along with two single-color GTOs—yet some of our books were perfect bound going over 100 pages." He traded a single-color Heidelberg GTO for a two-color Heidelberg Speedmaster 2029, a Hamada for a two-color Heidelberg Quickmaster, and most recently the final single-color GTO for a two-color version.

EPVA, one of 34 chapters of the Paralyzed Veterans Association parent, is the only chapter with an in-plant. Smaller chapters call on Torone for printing assistance, and if he has room in his million dollar budget, he'll add the job to his queue. Much of the printing involves medical information, architectural issues and questions about the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Since the EPVA doesn't charge for its services, Torone works hard to hold costs down.

"Most of our work is kept to one or two colors," he says. "Our organization exists by contributions, and I think anyone sending us money wants most of it to go for research."

Still, Torone has gotten creative with some projects, including 10,000 copies of a 52-page, six-color annual report. "Not to ring our own bells," he says, "but we did a damn good job, especially considering we did it on a two-color. We hit right on to match prints."

Now 59 years old, Torone plans to finish out his work years at EPVA before retiring to his fishing pole.

"I feel very strongly for this organization and what they do for paralyzed people," he says. "It's so different from being in the commercial, dog-eat-dog world. We're helping these people, and it makes me feel good if I can provide information and help them in some way through printing."