Dozens Attend First In-plant Road Show

A scene from one of last year's IPMA Roadshows.

Last Friday more than two dozen in-plant managers got together in Columbia, Mo., for the In-plant Printing and Mailing Association's first "Road Show" event. IPMA has organized a series of these networking meetings at in-plants around the country to keep managers in touch with each other and foster the continued sharing of ideas.

Linda Winn (in red) leads visiting in-plant managers on a tour of Shelter Insurance's in-plant during the IPMA Road Show event.

Last week's meeting brought 25 managers to Shelter Insurance’s impressive facility. They came from in-plants at the University of Missouri-Columbia, the University of Nebraska, Wal-Mart, the University of Oklahoma, Nestle Purina, Modern Woodmen of America, Blue Valley School District, Illinois Farm Bureau, Catholic Health Association and Iowa State University.

The seven-hour event featured sessions that ranged from an interactive “generational” human resources presentation to wide-format printing. The day started with a welcome from Shelter’s Executive Vice President Dan Clapp. New IPMA Executive Director Mike Loyd also addressed the group, detailing the networking opportunities IPMA offers.

"Everyone here does something here different and/or better than you do," Loyd said. "Take their ideas and use them to boost the success of your business as you serve your parent institution. At IPMA, our goal is to help you be the best that you can be. Take advantage of what is here."

Attendees hailed from a host of organizations such as Nestle Purina, Catholic Health Association, the University of Missouri-Columbia, Modern Woodmen of America and more.

In one engaging session, Will Wooten and Paul Larimore, training and development specialists at Shelter Insurance, spoke about generation gaps. They played music from the different eras and managers had to guess the name of the songs and what era it came from. Dressed as Elvis, Larimore closed to presentation by playing a song to demonstrate how "the King" came from one era but spanned across several generations.

Sporting his LSU colors, new IPMA Executive Director Mike Loyd told the group about the myriad networking opportunities IPMA offers.

In other sessions, Ray Bauer, of Ricoh Americas, spoke about wide-format applications, and Debbie Whitlock and Angela Bradley with the USPS talked about the USPS Every Door Direct Mail Program. Representatives from Kodak, Avanti, Canon and Southwest Binding and Laminating were all given a few minutes to talk about how their products can help in-plants.

Attendees enjoyed lunch from Shelter's in-house cafeteria and then were led on a tour of Shelter’s print and mail facility by Director Linda Winn. They saw the shop's Shinohara 52 press, Kodak NexPress digital press and EFI H652 UV hybrid printer in action, as well as the Bell and Howell Ascender inserter and Bell and Howell 32-bin sorting machine.

This was just the first of several IPMA road show events. The second is taking place Friday Nov. 11 in Salt Lake City at DMBA Central Services. IPG Editor Bob Neubauer is there and will report on the meeting next week.