A True Blue Printer
It was his first job in printing. The sole press operator for a classified ad magazine publisher, Paul Bethel was alone in the pressroom on that fateful day in 1983, running an old five-unit Harris web press.
"I was setting up the last job on a Friday," he recalls. As he tucked paper between the rollers in the folding unit of the press, the rollers caught his hand and pulled it in, crushing his fingers.
"I had the presence of mind to reach around the other side of the unit, which took a stretch...and I hit the jam switch and I cut the machine off," relates Bethel. His screams for help brought his boss, who was eventually able to free him.
"I wound up losing a couple fingers," Bethel says. It was a painful entry into the printing business. But where other 21-year-olds might have given up on printing, Bethel persevered. Today, he is manager of Digital Printing Services for Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Louisiana (BCBSLA), in Baton Rouge, a nine-employee, three-shift operation that produces directories, benefit books, forms, marketing collateral, checks and much more for the insurance giant.
Born in Springdale, Ark., Bethel moved around with his family as a child before ending up in Baton Rouge. Unsure of which direction he wanted to go, he tried a trade school, then a couple semesters at Louisiana State University before ending up at Baton Rouge Vocational Technical Institute. With some talent in drawing and photography, he was drawn to the school's graphic arts program.
"I was still naive, so I thought I was getting into some kind of art program," he laughs. "I stayed with it after I saw it was really printing. It kind of intrigued me."
After graduating, he got hired by a local classified ad magazine called The Shopper.
"I was the lone pressman for the whole company, and I was just a beginner," he says. That novice status would cost him. (He later learned that the press that took his fingers also claimed digits from two other operators. "That company is no longer in existence," he says.)
After six months of unemployment, Bethel was hired to run a folder at the headquarters of Jimmy Swaggart Ministries. Yearning for something less monotonous, he applied for a prepress position and got it. There he handled stripping and platemaking.
"I really enjoyed that part of it," he says.
After five years there, he moved on to Baker Printing for another five-year stint before joining BCBSLA. His former vo-tech teacher was a supervisor there and got him a job running an inserter in the mailroom for a half day and working in prepress for the other half. In time, that evolved into a full-time prepress position.
The First DocuTech
Then something happened that would change the direction of his career. The in-plant got a Xerox DocuTech.
"I wound up running the very first DocuTech they got here, and still doing prepress work," he says.
In 1997, Bethel was made supervisor of the prepress and digital printing department, and began slowly building it up. Over the years he upgraded the in-plant's digital equipment, adding a DocuColor 40, then a 6060, then an 8000AP, before finally installing a Color 1000 in 2011. He also oversaw two relocations into progressively larger areas.
In 2000, inspired by a new company education reimbursement program, he started going to night school at the University of Phoenix. Over the next seven years, Bethel earned not only his bachelors degree in business management, but his MBA.
"I stayed up till 2:00 and 3:00 writing papers," he says.
His tuition payments were aided when he twice won the James M. Brahney scholarship from the In-Plant Printing and Mailing association (IPMA), an organization he has belonged to for many years. He has served as president, vice president, treasurer and secretary for IPMA's Louisiana Bayou chapter.
In 2012, BCBSLA's IT printing operation was merged with Digital Printing Services. Bethel coordinated the installation of four Xerox Nuvera 288s to handle this new work along with the shop's existing workload.
Bethel also brought in a PSI 3655 envelope printer and Rimage CD/DVD duplicating equipment to provide additional services to the company.
"We're also in the midst of implementing RSA's WebCRD product," he remarks. "Hopefully by the end of this year it will be up and running."
Looking back on his 19 years with BCBS, Bethel is proud of how he's been able to transform his in-plant.
"I basically created the digital department from a copy shop," he says.
Outside of work, Bethel enjoys photography and spending time with his family. He and his wife Renee, who runs an embroidery business, have home schooled all three of their daughters, the oldest of whom just graduated from Southeastern Louisiana University with a degree in graphic design.
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.
