Making Villanova Proud

Ask Michael George what else he might have done with his life had he not become an in-plant manager and his answer comes quickly.

"I can't really see myself doing anything else," he proclaims. And after 15 years as director of Central Services at Villanova University, George has proven he has a knack for it. Under his watch, an in-plant that once struggled to recover costs and bring in customers has flourished, evolving into a trusted, busy operation boasting cutting-edge technology and exemplary customer service.

"I'm big on maintaining our reputation for providing good quality service at a competitive price," George declares. "People have the confidence just to come to us."

Back in his early days, though, the printing industry wasn't even in his sights. Born in Philadelphia, George attended East Stroudsburg University for three years before taking a break to work as a landscaper.

"One of the clients that I had as a landscaper owned M&M Graphics, which is a small commercial print shop," he recalls. "He hired me as an entry-level stripper."

Eventually George began running the shop's two-color Hamada. In 1991 he moved into the in-plant world when he took a job at American College in Bryn Mawr, Pa.

"I was hired as a press operator, and I left as a manager," he says. After running that shop for a couple years, Villanova asked him to help the Catholic university find a new in-plant director, and he worked with them as a consultant.

"They actually ended up offering me the job," he says.

With four kids to feed, he jumped on the opportunity to move to a larger university. That was in 1999. At the time, the in-plant had 11 employees and a mix of small offset and monochrome digital equipment, all situated in an old residence building on campus. He quickly discovered that because of the large amount of work being done off campus, the in-plant was not recovering its costs. He vowed to turn this around.

After analyzing the existing and potential jobs, George put together a business plan to upgrade equipment and train staff, initiatives that he felt would pave the path toward capturing more work.

"Fortunately, I got the support of senior management…to replace all the equipment," he says.

Then he started the hard work. He visited departments one at a time, trying to convince them to give the in-plant a try. He offered to beat any outside job price by 10 percent. He made money-back guarantees.

"If I didn't produce your job and get it to you in the time that we promised you…the job would be free," he says. "One by one we started to capture work and bring work back in-house."

That first year, he says, chargebacks totaled $464,000; in 2001 the shop charged back $1.1 million and was finally covering costs. This year, chargebacks are up to $2.4 million. He is quick to credit his dedicated staff, along with senior management support, with bringing about these results.

Web-to-print Pioneers

One of the innovations George is most proud of is the introduction of Web-to-print services to campus.

"We were the first university in the country to offer Web-to-print," he contends. The shop installed T/R Systems solution in 2001. Three years later it switched to Rochester Software Associates' WebCRD and began offering online ordering to students.

"It was extremely successful," he remarks. Student work has become one of the key sources of business for the in-plant. In 2006, students placed 6,214 orders through the RSA portal, George says, numbers at the ready; this year, 46,908 student jobs came through.

Another major change George facilitated was merging university mail services into printing. Seeing this happening at other universities, he presented the idea to senior management and got approval.

"By combining all these operations together, we had one CSR take in the job for design, print and mail," he notes.

In 2004 he made another big decision when he added the in-plant's first wide-format printer, a Canon imagePROGRAF iPF8300, along with a 42˝ Seal laminator.

"That, basically, within one year, paid for itself," he says. To enable that, he aligned the in-plant with professors who were assigning students to print posters. Instead of taking them to local quick printers, students began submitting those posters to the in-plant, using its Web portal. The influx in poster business has been substantial, he says. The shop recently upgraded to an HP latex printer.

George says one of his biggest challenges at Villanova had been running a printing operation situated inside what was essentially an old house, with equipment and offices in different rooms and on different floors. In 2012 he finally got his wish for a more modern facility when the in-plant moved into a renovated 3,000-square-foot space, joined by the bulk mail operation. He and his 17 full-time and six part-time employees are now located there and in two satellite operations.

The FSC-certified in-plant recently replaced its Xerox DocuColor 5000 with a Konica Minolta bizhub PRESS C8000. That followed a new Xanté Ilumina digital envelope press, added in 2012. George has plans to expand the wide-format area by adding 800 square feet to his facility in the months ahead.

With three of his four children having graduated from college, and the fourth in his sophomore year, George has a little more time these days to enjoy one of his favorite pastimes: deep sea fishing. He docks his boat in Ocean City, N.J., and spends weekends fishing for tuna and marlin.