IPMA 2024 Begins Sunday Evening - In-plant Impressions

By Bob Neubauer

The world’s largest gathering of in-plant managers will kick off on Sunday evening, June 3, in Des Moines, Iowa, when managers from across the country will attend the opening reception of the In-plant Printing and Mailing Association conference. So far, 152 attendees, guests, and speakers have registered for the conference, including 49 first-timers.

Attendees at the IPMA 2023 conference.

With the theme “Insure Your Success” the conference will feature dozens of educational sessions and keynote presentations, along with a number of roundtable discussions on topics of importance to in-plants. Several vendors will also hold users group meetings on Sunday.

The conference will include a two-day vendor fair featuring 43 exhibits from a variety of equipment and software vendors, providing attendees with ample time to learn about new technologies specific to in-plant operations.

Curt Hastings and David Higgins at a session during last year's conference.

On Tuesday evening, an awards banquet will honor winners of IPMA Awards and the In-Print 2024 awards. The ceremony will culminate with the announcement of the Best of Show winners, whose identities will be revealed in a pair of videos showing the judges picking the winners.

Nate Riggins (EMC Insurance), Nathan Thole (Iowa State University) and Ken Schanuel (Catholic Health).

IPI Editor Bob Neubauer will start things off Monday morning with a presentation in which he will provide a status report on the in-plant industry, incorporating new data from an IPI survey on trends at in-plants. Then Danny Adams will bring some humor to the conference with a keynote titled “Laughter is Medicine.”

Other notable speakers will include Greg Cholmondeley, Principal Analyst at Keypoint Intelligence; Howie Fenton, Principal of Howie Fenton Consulting; and Dr. Ken Macro, Chair and Professor of the Graphic Communication Department at California Polytechnic State University.

At the IPMA 2023 Conference, Ken Johnson (Ball State Univerity), Richard Beto (University of Texas), Steve Burdette (University of Texas) and Consultant Howie Fenton chew the fat in the vendor hall.

The annual conference will cover such important in-plant topics as inkjet, paper, mailing, Web-to-print, promotional products, insourcing, relocating, and succession planning. Numerous sessions will tackle wide-format printing geared toward various levels of expertise. On Monday afternoon, Dwayne Magee of Messiah University and Christopher Donlon of Kohler Co. will lead a leadership forum.

The event will culminate on Thursday with a tour of Iowa State University Printing Services where visitors will get a demonstration of the in-plant’s Canon varioPRINT iX3200 sheetfed inkjet press.

IPMA 2023 Conference

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Bob Neubauer Author's page

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.