Contemporary Renaissance Woman

CINDY HOHMAN is not one to back down from a challenge. The Marion, Ind., native, and future Office Services supervisor for American Electric Power (AEP), was the lone female graduate when she earned her Associate Architectural Engineering degree in 1985 from ITT Tech, in Fort Wayne. She ranked fourth in her class.

When Hohman began her career in the construction industry, she was the only woman at her first two jobs—working for an architect that designed churches and for a builder specializing in new home construction.

Given her drive, it’s not surprising that Hohman went on to head up an in-plant for one of the largest electric utilities in the nation, AEP.

“I have every opportunity available to me here. It’s one of the reasons why I have stayed so long,” she says. “AEP is a very diverse company, a fact we are quite proud of.”

AEP delivers electricity to more than five million customers in 11 states. Hoh-man joined the company in 1987 as building services technologist in the general services department. She was promoted to Office Services coordinator in 1994, then accepted the position of supervisor in 1996.

In the past, explains Hohman, Office Services was the department that took care of everything, including print, mail, copiers, fax machines, pool cars, electric bill inserting, records retention and petty cash.

“Office Services is now more specialized, as other tasks have been centralized or changed completely with technology,” she says. “The supervisor position presently includes printing services, mail services, forms management and food services.”

AEP has three larger-volume digital black-and-white and color locations—Fort Wayne, Tulsa, Okla., and Roanoke, Va.—as well as six regional locations and an outsource division.

“Each location is supervised locally, but we support each other, participating in biweekly conference calls and an annual print meeting,” explains Hohman. “Since we each report to different managers, we have a liaison in workplace programs, Minissa Bowers, who keeps us all together and moving in the right direction.”

Although just one part of the AEP printing services enterprise, Fort Wayne is the company’s largest production location, and the only offset and full bindery facility. Five sheetfed presses and Canon black-and-white and color digital printers produce jobs for the regional offices, and support offset and forms functions for all of AEP’s 11 states. In 2006, Fort Wayne produced 2.4 million black-and-white impressions, 182,000 color impressions and 20 million offset impressions.

“Companywide, our enterprise produced 18 million black-and-white and six million color [impressions],” reports Hohman. “Our products include posters and banners, training manuals, booklets, contracts, brochures, CD/DVD burning, forms and inserts. We outsource projects that require special stocks [and] bindery [work] requir[ing] equipment we don’t have, like weatherproof stocks and die cutting.”

An Eye on Improvements

Like most in-plant managers, Hohman is involved in regular reviews of the operation. These have helped improve efficiencies and workflow. For example, at one time AEP had 11 locations printing more than 10,000 different forms. An audit of redundant and outdated forms resulted in a 56 percent reduction in the number of forms. Additionally, the printing work was consolidated, until eventually it was all being handled out of Hohman’s Fort Wayne facility.

In 2004, Hohman and Print Coordinator Laura Gigli were instrumental in winning the opportunity to print all AEP operating company bill inserts for electric bills, which were previously outsourced.

“Our proposal included the addition of one full-time employee, the purchase of a Ryobi 3200PFA [perfector], a Baum 2020 folder and a BaumCut 31.5. We refined several of our processes in Fort Wayne, and reduced insert prepress and production time by 32 percent,” she says. “As an enterprise, we now enjoy great support from upper management as we refine our internal Web site, providing an improved process to submit print requests. My colleagues and I support and inform AEP leaders across the company about our products and how we can fit into their success.”

If her day job affords her little down time, Hohman’s roles as wife to husband of 17 years, Mike, and electrical engineer, and mom to 13-year-old Aaron and nine-year-old Megan, keep her equally occupied.

“Our family ... is very involved with youth and adult bowling, swimming, golf and baseball. And, I am passionate about quilting as a creative outlet,” reveals Hohman. “I have enjoyed my 20-year career with AEP, but at this point in time, if I had to start again, I would obtain a degree in art education, working with children in the arts and in the textile industry.”