From the Editor: The Age of Printers

Finding in-plant managers who were born in the '70s was harder than I thought it would be. For one thing, some people get very cagey when it comes to revealing their age. So the opportunity to have this bit of personal information blasted out to the world, didn't exactly excite everyone.

And then there were those whom I assumed were under 40, but as it turns out hadn't seen their 30s in several years. (Their admission of this fact created much awkwardness for both of us.)

Some who were young enough to take part were too shy to participate. Others were eager to be included—if only we'd done this a few years ago when they still qualified. (If we were profiling 40-somethings, I'd have had scores of volunteers.)

In the end, though, we were able to get the stories of 15 admirable men and women who have been working hard to make their in-plants successful. Most of them credited their past or present boss at the in-plant (or another print industry figure) for mentoring them and helping them succeed as a manager. This support is crucial to cultivate the next generation of in-plant managers, and it's something that all managers out there can take a lesson from.

Don't let those on your staff with ideas and management potential wither away in positions that don't suit them. Encourage them and create opportunities for them to advance. That's how many of these young managers got where they are, and their organizations have all benefited from their contributions.

On another note, I returned from Chicago a few weeks ago, where I was fortunate to spend time with a number of in-plant managers at Graph Expo. I ran into them on the show floor, at various vendor receptions and at the IPMA lunch session on integrated marketing, which drew more than 70 in-plant managers.

Prior to the show, I drove up to Milwaukee to visit Briggs & Stratton's large in-plant, proudly shown off to me by Debbie Pavletich and Brian Patterson. The G7 Master Printer-certified in-plant has not only a four-color Ryobi offset press (which it used to print the catalog that won In-Print 2009 Best of Show), but a host of digital presses from a variety of vendors. For example, the shop has a five-color Kodak NexPress S2500, a Ricoh Pro C900, an Océ VarioPrint 6250 with inline square stitch binding, a new Konica Minolta bizhub PRO 2500 and a Xerox DocuTech.

While I was there, they showed me a recent application where they printed QR codes on product packaging, to bring interested shoppers immediately to a relevant Web site. It was great to see this new technology in action at an in-plant.

Finally, I would like to welcome John Sarantakos, head of the University of Oklahoma's in-plant, to the IPG Editorial Advisory Board. Ohio State Printer Joe Tucker retired from both his job and his spot on our board, and I could think of no one better to take his place than John.