Ken Holm Retires After 35 Years

After 35 years with the University of Nebraska, Ken Holm has decided to retire. His exemplary dedication to both staff and customers helped Printing Services grow to be one of the country's top in-plants.

by Bob Neubauer

After four years in the Air Force, Minnesota native Kenneth L. Holm found himself jobless in Lincoln, Neb., back in 1963, with a wife to support. To help him out, a neighbor got him an apprenticeship at a local printing firm. Though Holm knew nothing about printing, he decided not to be picky.

"My wife had a job and I didn't," he laughs. "I needed a job."

So started a career that has spanned 40 years and left Holm with no regrets.

"Once you get this printing stuff in your blood, you get to love it," says the 61-year-old.

For the past 35 years Holm has worked for University of Nebraska Printing and Copy Services, in Lincoln, starting there just a year after his four-year apprenticeship at Jacob North Printing Co. ended. This month he will retire. He will be missed not only by employees and customers, but by scores of in-plant managers accustomed to seeing him at ACUP and NSPA conferences over the years.

"I have never met a better person in my life," says Rick Wise, director of Printing Services at the University of Missouri-Columbia. "I will truly miss my association with him."

Modest Visionary

As director, Holm oversaw 50 employees in the print shop and 22 in mail and distribution, as well as 30 student workers.

Good natured and quick with a laugh, Ken Holm is also a modest man, reluctant to take credit for his in-plant's success. Still, it was he who made the call, back in 1991, to take a chance on a new technology from Xerox, the DocuTech. And the in-plant's strong customer service focus seems modeled after Holm's own personable, willing-to-please nature.

"If you don't like it, you don't pay for it," he says, quoting the in-plant's policy on print jobs. "We guarantee everything we print."

Though he loves the challenges of printing difficult jobs—like the programs for the University of Nebraska's winning football team—there's one element of his job he likes even better:

"I enjoy the people," he says—both customers and employees.

They have returned that respect. In 2000 he was awarded the university's Floyd S. Oldt Boss of the Year award., an honor he clearly treasures.

Holm insists on treating employees fairly, each one as an individual.

"Treat them the way you want to be treated yourself," is his mantra. As a result, he says, "we don't lose people too often." Many stay with him until they retire.

Holm's respect for his employees hails, in part, from the fact that he has been in their shoes. He had to work his way up at Printing Services, starting in the stripping room in 1968, when hot metal and letterpress were still big parts of the operation. Eventually he became production coordinator, a job that later turned into plant superintendent.

Through the years, Holm helped expand the operation, adding two-color presses and, later, DocuTechs and color copiers to keep the in-plant up to date. Between 1989 and the present, he says, the shop doubled its capacity.

Holm credits his supervisors at the university with being very supportive of his expansion plans. The fact that the in-plant uses money from its own machine replacement account has also made it easier to buy new gear when needed. As recently as January, the shop added a new Stahl folder.

Because of its capabilities, Printing and Copy Services handles 85 percent of the University of Nebraska's printing, Holm says. Of that, he says, 75 percent is printed in-house. He credits the in-plant's strong customer service focus with bringing so much of the school's work to the in-plant, since customers are free to use other printers if they choose.

To foster good customer relations, Holm says, his service reps are each assigned clients, so customers always have the same contact person. Workshops and annual open houses also bring customers closer to the in-plant.

"The university is very pleased with us. We have a very good rapport on campus," he says. "We want to be the printer of choice."

Word has spread beyond the Lincoln campus, too. The in-plant does overflow work for the state of Nebraska, and prints jobs for the university's three other campuses.

Some of his ideas, Holm says, have resulted from his membership in in-plant organizations like the Association of College and University Printers and the National State Publishing Association. Their meetings have brought Holm in contact with managers around the country.

Though he occasionally mentions the word "retirement" Holm is not ready to leave the operation he has dedicated so much of his life to. For one thing, he wants to be there when print and mail move into their new facility.

After that, he may consider turning more attention to the farm he tends as a hobby, and to his six grandchildren—with a seventh on the way.

Looking back on his nearly four decades in the printing business, Ken Holm has nothing but fond memories.

"I made the right choice," he says.