OU Road Show and a Fond Farewell to Director Sarantakos
Retiring OU Director John Sarantakos addresses the crowd at the IPMA Road Show.
Yesterday in Norman, Oklahoma, the In-plant Printing and Mailing Association (IPMA) held its third Road Show event of the year at the University of Oklahoma’s Printing and Mailing Services operation.
Managers from 10 different in-plants attended OU's Road Show.
The event drew attendees from Oklahoma City and beyond, including in-plant managers from Lockheed Martin, Vanderbilt University, Oklahoma City Community College, the City of Oklahoma City, Career Tech, Missouri State University, and Redlands College. The Road Show also doubled as a farewell party for retiring Director John Sarantakos, who has overseen OU’s in-plant for more than a quarter century. He was recently inducted into the prestigious Ben Franklin Honor Society.
Fourteen different vendors set up tables at OU's Road Show.
After a welcome from incoming OU Printing and Mailing Services Director Sherri Isbell, Ricoh's Debbie Pavletich led off the event with a presentation on trends and in-plant innovation in the marketplace. This was followed by a session on selling promotional products and apparel.
After lunch, visitors had a chance to visit the booths set up by 14 exhibitors and talk with them about the solutions they provide. Throughout the day, in-plant managers had time to talk with one another about their daily challenges and offer each other advice.
Attendees tour the University of Oklahoma's in-plant.
In the afternoon, Sarantakos gave a brief history of OU Printing and Mailing Services, and then visitors got to see the operation for themselves. The shop runs a 40ʺ Heidelberg Speedmaster perfecting press as well as two Kodak NexFinity digital presses. It has also moved into direct-to-object printing with the installation of a Mimaki UJF-6042 MkII e flatbed object printer. The in-plant recently won 10 awards in the In-Print 2024 contest.
On Friday, the university will celebrate the career of John Sarantakos with a retirement ceremony at the Oklahoma Memorial Union from 2-4 pm.
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.
