Diane Karl has served as Print Shop Manager at Bethel School District in Spanaway, Wash., for 25 years.

By Dawn Greenlaw-Scully

RIGHT NOW, somewhere in the world, a teacher is admonishing students: "Don't copy!" But within the Bethel School District, in Spanaway, Wash., educators and staff are applauding Diane Karl for nearly 26 years of consistent, finely executed copying (and printing).

As the district's print shop manager, Karl oversees graphic design, production, reproduction and print distribution services for 17 elementary schools, six junior high schools, three high schools, an alternative school for grades eight through 12, an online academy and district administration. Total student enrollment is approximately 17,500. Jobs range from classroom worksheets, booklets, testing materials and student planners to stationery products, handbooks, posters and newsletters. At this stage of her career, Karl is well-schooled in all the printed accoutrements of academic operations.

The longtime print professional credits a lifelong passion for taking pictures as the inspiration for her vocation. After graduating high school in Tacoma, Wash., Karl hoped to study photography at Clover Park Vocational-Technical Institute. However, once she discovered that there was a two-year wait for the class, she decided to give offset reprographics a try.

"I would still be working in a darkroom, with halftones and negatives," she recalls. "Plus, I liked the idea of designing and typesetting."

While Karl was still a student, her instructors tapped her to assist in the production of printed course materials for the institute. After graduation in 1977, she took a job with a local forms business, and then was recruited by a large forms shop in Sparks, Nev. (where she worked two jobs simultaneously—the second with a full-service printer). When she returned to Washington, she gained additional experience at a high-end, design-oriented shop.

The start of her career path wasn't entirely smooth. "When I came into the business, it was realistically a man's field," Karl points out, noting that, at one shop, "although I was doing the same job as two men, they were paid 40 cents more an hour." She remembers that the boss "justified" his policy by saying that the men had families to support.

Often, Karl felt that she had to prove herself to her male counterparts. "Service guys thought that a 'girl' couldn't run a press," she scoffs. "Meanwhile, I just wanted to focus on getting better at what I did. I loved design. I loved being able to put something together and have the client say, 'Wow, look what you did for me!' "

When Karl joined the Bethel School District as a technician, she did indeed run presses. She also began managing the shop, which had only two employees at the time, and was awarded a supervisory title a few years later.

Adding A Digital Perspective

During her tenure, she has broadened the in-plant's analog purview (the shop featured a darkroom, vertical camera and Silvermaster platemaker) to add a digital perspective. Around 2000, the shop installed a Kodak 2110 copier. In addition, "I was the first one in the district to get a Mac and [back then] I taught myself how to use PageMaker," Karl relates. "Going from a Linotype typesetter to the computer—it was the start of the whole field changing."

Karl also changed others' careers positively through her willingness to share what she learned. Peggy Brayton, a former in-plant employee who now works for Bethel Public Schools' Office of Professional Development, lauds Karl's leadership skills.

"When I first went to work for [Diane], I had very limited computer skills," Brayton says. "As part of my duties, she taught me Adobe's PageMaker and InDesign. The five years that I spent in the print shop were crucial to my growth in my current position."

During the digital transition, Karl was also helping to transplant the entire operation from a 1,100-square-foot location into a new 2,700-square-foot facility with additional warehouse space. Concurrent with the move, the shop invested in a pair of Heidelberg (Kodak) Digimaster 9110s, including one with a booklet–maker, and a Konica Minolta 7030 color copier.

At the time of the relocation into the district service annex, the shop was outputting about 750,000 impressions a month. Now, the monthly output averages nearly 3.5 million. In recent years, the shop has added another 9110 with a bookletmaker and a Konica Minolta bizhub PRO C6500. The digital output capabilities complement the in-plant's newer offset presses, which include a pair of Heidelberg 1250s and a QM 42.

"It's nice that we've had so much support that we've been able to advance in the digital area," Karl muses. "Some local shops have gone out of business because they didn't want to learn something new."

"And yet," she adds with a touch of irony, "we still get people who say that we're not really a professional shop because we operate within the school district."

Karl has been tackling the challenge of convincing school district staff to use the in-plant instead of their walk-up copiers. "We try to show them how doing work themselves will cut into their time, so now a lot of people realized how much time and money they can save through us," Karl explains. The shop's creed is: "When you let us do what we do best—you'll have more time to do what you do best."

Changing the Printing Culture

Karl has taken advantage of the scanning capabilities of the school-based copiers to achieve a digital job submission rate of about 75 percent.

"By using the technology available, Diane has effectively changed the printing culture of our district," chimes in Suzanne Doyle, Social Science instructor at Bethel High School. "Teachers have learned that, by using the print shop rather than building copiers, the product quality increases and the district has saved tens of thousands of dollars each year."

Karl estimates that the in-plant produces more than 67 percent of the district's print jobs, thanks in part to the shop's user-friendly digital workflow.

Karl credits her six full-time and three part-time co-workers for playing an integral part in the shop's success.

"Being surrounded by committed people and staff who can adjust to change makes things possible," she declares.

And no one is more committed than the print shop manager. Sometimes working from 6:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. during the school year, Karl admits that she's "probably a bit of a workaholic."

"I have always known Diane to go above and beyond expectations," affirms Debbie Almont, administrative assistant for the district. "Year after year, Diane proves to be a selfless individual who is there to help the Bethel School District with [its] printing needs."

Still, Karl certainly manages to enjoy her life beyond print shop walls. She remains an enthusiastic photographer, and has also cultivated a collection of more than 400 frogs (inanimate but "with character"). And when she's not running presses and training employees, she's likely watching the horse she co-owns prepare to train and then run at the Emerald Downs racetrack next year. The horse—which is out of the lineage of Seattle Slew and Boca Rio—will race under the name Phoebe's Top Speed, and provides her owner with a "great pressure release and a nice change of pace."

"Horses just like to be groomed and loved," Karl reflects. "And they don't talk back to you."IPG