From England to ‘Ole Miss’

WORLDWIDE PRINTING experience is not something many mangers can put on their resumes. Tony Seaman can, though.

Now director of the Publishing Center at the University of Mississippi, in Oxford, Seaman was born and raised in Binbrook, England. He took an early interest in printing because of his father, who was a lithographer for 50 years.

In 1961, Seaman started as an apprentice camera operator at W. Heffer & Sons, in Cambridge. He spent seven years doing rule and paste work and converting line art and pictures into film. He graduated from the London College of Printing in 1967, and went on to be a journeyman camera operator.

In 1970, being “young and adventurous,” he left home for the English Channel Island of Jersey, then headed to Bermuda, where he worked at the Island Press. He later ended up in Syracuse, N.Y., working as a camera operator and color retoucher for Britton Color. There he met his wife Beverly.

After a couple of Syracuse winters, the couple decided to head south. They went to San Antonio, Texas, where he took a position with Clarke Checks as a prepress manager. That division was soon closed, so they moved to Nashville where he became manager of prepress for Rand McNally. Seaman spent 10 years with the company, moving up to production control manager in a division that printed airline tickets. Then he took a position as vice president of production for J.W. Moore & Co., a family-run printer in Memphis.

In 1996 he applied for and got the position of director of Printing Services with the University of Mississippi.

“I saw they were doing a national search and I threw my name in the ring,” says Seaman, his British accent still prominent.

Prepress Upgrades

When he started at the “Ole Miss” in-plant, it had 22 employees, a two-color 29˝ Heidelberg press, some small duplicators and an analog copy center. The shop produced stationery, newsletters and black-and-white copying. Four-color work was outsourced. Seaman’s first order of business was to upgrade the entire prepress department.

“They had an old imagesetter, and the first thing I did was bought a new one,” he says. He also upgraded to new Macs and bought new platemaking equipment.

Four years ago the in-plant entered into course pack production, and it has been a big revenue boost. A couple of months later, the shop started processing bulk mail materials, offering mail lists, forwarding, inserting, addressing and discounted postal rates, using AccuZip software. This has helped to bring in revenue.

“We are a revenue-generating department so we have to worry about profits as the bottom line,” he says.

Today, the 15-employee in-plant reports $1.6 million in revenue and operates a four-color 28˝ Akiyama press, a two-color Heidelberg and a two-color envelope press. Variable data printing is done in-house. Seaman brought the copy center in-house too, to keep all operations under one roof, and changed its name to the Digital Print Center.

“We don’t have a first right of refusal clause, so we have to be competitive,” adds Seaman.

Among his greatest successes, he says, was the addition of offset and digital four-color capabilities and the addition of bulk mail processing. The shop’s quality printing was recognized with a silver award in this year’s In-Print contest.

“I have a great group of people,” Seaman lauds. “The staff is outstanding. That is why we’ve been so successful, because of their ability and dedication.”

An IPMA member with CGCM certification, Seaman will be co-hosting this month’s Southeastern University Printing & Duplicating Managers Conference (SUPDMC) in Memphis. He has spent recent months arranging for speakers, sponsors and entertainment.

In his time away from the print shop, Seaman enjoys gardening, fishing, playing guitar and refereeing high school soccer. He and his wife have two grown children and a new grandson. IPG

Tony Seaman has been director of Printing Services with the University of Mississippi for 10 years.