Ex-farmer Rescues In-plants

Doug Larsen used to sow seeds on his father's farm. Now, he sows the seeds for in-plant success.

WHEN Girls and Boys Town, in Omaha, Neb., needed to update its in-plant, the organization hired a guy with next to no printing experience.

But Doug Larsen, the man who took the job, says it doesn't matter; his responsibilities have more to do with making customers happy than the technical minutiae of running a four-color press.

Similarly, when asked about his role in reviving the stagnant Girls and Boys Town in-plant, Larsen prefers to deflect praise with self-deprecating humor.

"All I do is talk and point," laughs the waggish manager of graphic communications. However, the truth is Larsen does much more than that.

Perhaps his laid-back style grew out of his early experiences working on the family farm in Underwood, Iowa. It was there, between raising cattle and tending sheep, that Larsen says he learned the vital skill of "just talking to people and trying to solve problems."

While he was working on his first degree in farm operations at Iowa State University, his family sold its farm equipment and operations and began renting out its 425-acre tract.

That decision sealed Larsen's fate.

"I wasn't going to have a farm to go back and do much farming with," explains Larsen. "That's when I got involved with journalism, and that's where I started to learn about layout design and printing."

In 1986, fresh out of college, Larsen got a job with Farmhouse International Fraternity (FIF) working with college students to set up new fraternities, and designing FIF brochures.

Two years later, Larsen took a job with the Chicago Medical Society as a marketing manager designing marketing pieces, and was once again immersed in the world of printing.

After a few years of this kind of unintentional moonlighting, Larsen began to develop a firm grasp of printing technology. So when the opportunity came to manage the struggling in-plant at the University of Nebraska at Kearney in 1991, Larsen decided that the time was ripe for him to move into professional printing.

"I didn't have any experience, I can just talk faster than most people can listen," says Larsen of how he got the job. "And they realized that if they didn't hire me, I would've just kept coming back."

Despite his admitted lack of experience, Larsen got the job and started reorganizing the frazzled in-plant's day-to-day operations.

By the time he finished four years later, Larsen's Midas Touch had turned the struggling in-plant's operations to gold. But unfortunately for the University of Nebraska at Kearney, Larsen was needed elsewhere.

Another Struggling In-plant

In 1995, the in-plant at Boys Town (now Girls and Boys Town) was in a state of turmoil. Eighteen months earlier its manager died unexpectedly. Without a clear idea of what to do next, a consultant was brought in to determine the shop's fate.

The consultant not only advised Girls and Boys Town to keep the shop open, but also to find a manager who could lead an upgrade in technology and provide strong leadership.

Rudderless, Girls and Boys Town set out to find that someone.

Enter, Doug Larsen.

Five years later, the in-plant has doubled its output, moved into a new facility nearly twice the size of its old one, cut printing costs by 50 percent and purchased a whole lot of new equipment.

For Larsen, the biggest challenge of all was changing the perception of his in-plant within the company.

"If you order a pizza and it shows up two days late, you're not going to be going to that place again," observes Larsen. "But if you order a pizza and it shows up when you ask for it and it tastes good, by golly, you'll go back to that place. And that's what we've done."

With so much to do at work, and a wife and four boys at home, Larsen says he doesn't have much time for hobbies. And when asked what else he might have done if he hadn't gone into printing, the jocular Larsen replies, "I could be doing something else?" IPG

Doug Larsen went from plowing the fields, to plowing through reams of paper at the Girls and Boys Town in-plant, in Omaha, Neb.

by Allan Martin Kemler