In-plants Go All Out for Pope

By Bob Neubauer

GPO employee Charlene Stevenson places tassels on a program. First Lady Michelle Obama tweeted her personal thanks to the 42-year GPO veteran after seeing GPO’s Facebook post about this job.

In case you hadn't heard, Pope Francis spent the weekend in Philadelphia, and everyone in IPG's hometown was caught up in the buzz. For most, the main impact of the papal visit was the numerous traffic restrictions and street closures implemented by the city. This resulted in the decision of NAPCO Media, IPG's parent company, to close our offices Friday and Monday.

Technically, it was the city's extensive no-car zones (locally called the "traffic box") that closed IPG's offices, not the pontiff himself—he would never do that. After all, the vatican has its own in-plant, called Tipografía Vaticana, which is presumably staffed by eager readers of IPG. (Or at least this editor would like to think so.)

Last week was not a normal week in Philadelphia. All over the city, metal fences lined the streets (along with long rows of porta-potties). Street vendors hawked pope t-shirts and posters along with other (non-Vatican-sanctioned) paraphernalia.Charlene Stevenson places tassels on a program. First Lady Michelle Obama tweeted her personal thanks to the 42-year GPO vetran after seeing GPO’s Facebook post about this job.

Pope Francis

When the pope arrived in Washington, DC, last week and visited the White House, he was handed a program printed by the Government Publishing Office, the country's largest in-plant. GPO staff hand-assembled 15,000 programs, complete with gold tassels, which were given to guests attending the South Lawn ceremony. Programs and prayer cards for the pope's Philadelphia mass on Sunday were also printed by an in-plant: the Knights of Columbus operation in New Haven, Conn.

No word on whether the Archdiocese of Philadelphia's in-plant printed any of the banners or other material for the pontiff's visit; the office phones there went surprisingly unanswered when we called—almost as if everyone was preoccupied.

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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.