Navy Veteran, Alabama Enthusiast
SPEND SOME time talking with Jimmy Robinson and you’ll quickly learn a few things about him. He’s a proud Navy veteran who’s fond of college football, loyal to his friends and proud of his Alabama upbringing.
Knowing all this, you might be surprised to learn that Robinson, director of the University of West Alabama’s Department of Printing for more than two decades, actually hails from New Eagle, Pa. That’s where he spent his first five years, until that fateful day in 1965 when the printing company where his father worked—McGregor Printing—pulled up stakes and moved south to York, Ala.
It was a move that sat well with Robinson, who grew to love living in the “Heart of Dixie.” And because of the awe in which he held his father, it was perhaps inevitable that he would grow to love printing as well.
“I started in the plate room [at McGregor] when I was 16 years old doing traditional paste-up,” Robinson recalls.
Six months later, though, after graduating early from high school, life called him in a new direction.
Anchors Aweigh
“I joined the Navy when I was 17 years old,” he says, adding, “I just wanted to get away.”
He landed in the 10-man print shop aboard the USS Kitty Hawk. There he spent the next four years, traveling the world and printing everything the ship needed, including a daily newspaper. He eventually became shop supervisor and was once named “supervisor of the quarter.”
In 1979, as his ship headed home from the Philippines, the Iran hostage crisis unfolded, and the Kitty Hawk was turned around and stationed in the Persian Gulf for 83 days. This was just a minor obstacle for this devoted Crimson Tide fan, however.
“I listened to the 1980 Alabama-Arkansas Sugar Bowl on the flight deck of the Kitty Hawk, in the Persian Gulf, on a short wave radio at 2:00 in the morning,” he laughs.
Robinson’s active duty ended in 1981 and he joined the reserves. He calls it “the best decision I ever made in my life.” Unable to return to McGregor, now a union shop, he went to electrician school for a few months. Then the University of West Alabama called to offer him a job as a press operator at its three-employee shop. He has never looked back.
Constant Improvement
In 1985, Robinson became director, and ever since he has always looked for ways to improve his in-plant. Though equipped with just a Multi 1250 when he started, the shop soon added a Varityper and started doing typesetting. He brought in a two-color Multi 4620 duplicator and later upgraded to a two-color Hamada 248 offset press. The shop used that to bring color jobs in-house.
After reading about the merits of computer-to-plate technology, Robinson became an early advocate and added a RIPit CTP device.
“Being as small as we are, I always thought we had to stay one step ahead of the rest of them,” he explains.
When the time was right, he added a Xerox DocuColor 12, then upgraded to a 2045. A few months ago, the shop traded that in for a new Xerox 5000, which is now handling most of the shop’s color printing and much of the black-and-white.
“The quality of it is unbelievable,” he praises. And quality is important to this shop, which proudly displays the In-Print Gold Award it won last year for a four-color brochure, printed in two passes on the Hamada.
Always on the lookout for opportunities, Robinson recently convinced the university to stop bulk printing and warehousing catalogs and let his in-plant print and bind them on demand. The deal allowed the shop to add a perfect binder, keep its equipment busy and save the university lots of money.
“We are also going to do the University Press soft bound books,” he adds.
Robinson added bulk mail to his operation two years ago, and he hopes to offer wide-format printing and personalized brochures in the future.
“I’m always looking for something new to do,” he reveals.
Though his boss supports him whenever he suggests changes, there was a time, 15 years ago, when a new university president brought in “hatchet men” who wanted to eliminate his position. Robinson was able to keep his job, but lost his press operator. For a year he ran the press and bindery himself.
“It was a pretty stressful year, but we survived,” he says.
Robinson is a frequent attendee of in-plant conferences like the Association of College and University Printers (ACUP) and the Southeastern University Printing and Digital Managers Conference (SUPDMC), and he praises them for the friendships and knowledge they’ve brought him.
Though he retired from the Navy in 2001, Robinson is excited about attending the decommissioning ceremony for the USS Kitty Hawk—which his wife Lisa jokingly calls “his first true love.” The couple has two sons, Christopher, 20, and Ashley, 14. In his off hours, Jimmy Robinson loves fishing, hunting and golfing, and he recently picked up a new hobby: sausage making.
As for printing, his early affection for it has not waned.
“I love what I do,” he proclaims. “I have got a great job.”
- Companies:
- Xerox Corp.
Bob has served as editor of In-plant Impressions since October of 1994. Prior to that he served for three years as managing editor of Printing Impressions, a commercial printing publication. Mr. Neubauer is very active in the U.S. in-plant industry. He attends all the major in-plant conferences and has visited more than 180 in-plant operations around the world. He has given presentations to numerous in-plant groups in the U.S., Canada and Australia, including the Association of College and University Printers and the In-plant Printing and Mailing Association. He also coordinates the annual In-Print contest, co-sponsored by IPMA and In-plant Impressions.
