‘You Have To Be The Best’

FOR DOUG Fenske, printing was never a thought in his mind when he was growing up in Madelia, Minn. Then in 1974, between his freshman and sophomore years at Gustavus Adolphus College, he took a summer job at House of Print, a newspaper printer that also did commercial work.

“I fell in love and have been in printing ever since,” reflects Fenske, now director of printing at nearby Minnesota State University, Mankato.

At House of Print, owned by Ogden Newspapers, Fenske was a camera assistant, shooting film and then stripping and making plates. After a couple of years, he became supervisor of the prepress department. In addition, he took turns with his colleagues as production manager every third week. Working crazy hours and at a rapid pace, he didn’t sleep much, he says, joking that many times he didn’t know where he was.

After he had been at House of Print for about 17 years, the in-plant at Minnesota State University, Mankato, sought him out and asked him to apply for the position of director of printing.

“I wasn’t really looking,” he admits. But, he applied for the job anyway. “It was a little slower pace than at the commercial end. And, it was a good opportunity, with some benefits.”

Too Many Policies

The in-plant offered him the job, and Fenske has been working there ever since. When he started, he was surprised by all of the policies the in-plant had in place, and found them to be counterproductive.

“If you wanted a letterhead done, it had a policy of a six-week completion time. So, things would sit around if they were completed in a week,” he explains. He said that at the end of the school year, faculty would drop off orders for the fall that would sit around until the start of the following school year, and the staff would then complete them at the last minute.

“I was here about three months and said, ‘that’s insane,’ ” he recalls. So he began making some changes. “My first staff meeting, I said, ‘This is our policy: we have no policies. We have to start over,’” he explains. “The joke I told was, ‘I cut the words ‘no’ and ‘problem’ out of the dictionary, and you could only use them if you used them together.’ ”

The staff was initially not happy with his approach, he says, but he believes that had the in-plant not made changes, it would have closed.

When he started at the college, Printing Services had a two-color Multigraphics printer and a couple single-color Multigraphics presses. He replaced this equipment with Heidelberg presses. In addition, the in-plant purchased a Halm envelope press so it could print envelopes in-house, which helped save the in-plant money.

Though he led several initiatives to turn around business for the in-plant, which operates on a $1.2 million budget, Fenske credits much of his shop’s success to his staff. The in-plant has 11 full-time staff members, as well as about 35 part-time student employees. The shop prints brochures, booklets, posters, business cards, envelopes and stationery for the university and runs the campus copy shops.

“You don’t have to be the cheapest to be an in-plant; you have to be the best,” he says. “And the staff that I have is the best in town. We can’t buy the quality we produce. I have a staff that can do anything people throw at them. They’ll figure out how to get it done.”

In addition to offset and digital printing, the in-plant provides graphic design, online job submission, wide-format printing and full bindery services, including die-cutting and foil imprinting. The in-plant handles print procurement, manages the university’s fleet of copiers and printers and sells promotional products.

“We print everything the university can throw at us,” Fenske boasts.

He also jokes that one of his big successes is the fact that he still has a job. The in-plant does such a good business that “people don’t think of going anywhere else,” he says. “It’s all about what the customers want, and if we forget that, we lose business.”

Outside of the in-plant, Fenske is a Madelia city council member, which he calls a “huge learning experience.” He hopes to be re-elected for another term.

He also enjoys spending time with his three grandsons, who are 14, eight and three years old, and his three sons. In 1973, around the same time he fell in love with printing, Fenske fell in love with a girl in his hometown. He has been married to her (his wife Candy) for 35 years.

Fenske plans to continue his career at the in-plant for the rest of his working life.

“I will retire from here, I hope,” he says, adding that when he does, he’ll “be on a golf course every day.”