IPMA Conference Wraps Up in Denver

By Bob Neubauer

Last week in Denver more than 150 in-plant managers got together for the In-plant Printing and Mailing Association conference. Contrary to expectations for Colorado, the weather was rather hot, climbing toward 100 degrees on some days.

Al Goranson leads a tour of the University of Colorado-Boulder's in-plant.

On Tuesday, after analyst Dr. Joe Webb talked about the state of the in-plant industry, attendees toured the University of Colorado's in-plant in Boulder and the Ricoh Customer Innovation Center. Educational sessions were offered at both locations on topics like inkjet, Web-to-print, MIS and more. That night attendees walked the Pearl Street pedestrian zone of Boulder and visited several restaurants, all hosted by Ricoh.

On Wednesday, the day started with Michael Brown, deputy director of FEMA from 2001-2005, offering his observations on disaster recover and giving his take on the missteps that occurred in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Al Goranson of the University of Colorado-Boulder gave some advice on how to tell your in-plant's story to your organization and he showed off an annual report his shop has created comparing stats on his in-plant with IPG research data on the industry. Then Howie Fenton, a consultant with IMG, talked about the need to offer more value-added services and how to create a threat assessment of outsourcers and facilities management companies.

An audience discussion at one of the sessions.

The vendor fair opened on Wednesday and attendees spent time talking to vendors and seeing the products they had on display. That night at the awards banquet, both the IPMA Awards and the In-Print awards were given out (in a ceremony that lasted until 11:30 p.m.). The Best of Show winners were also revealed: The Church of Scientology (offset) and Yale University (non-offset).

On Thursday there were more sessions and more time in the vendor area. And on Friday, those who stayed got a tour of the State of Colorado's in-plant. Watch for a full report in IPG soon.

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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.