Small Shop, Big Success

In his 17 years at Iowa Bankers Association (IBA), Todd Palmer has worked wonders, orchestrating a business expansion that would make much larger in-plants jealous. Under his direction, the two-employee Print & Mail Services operation has expanded its equipment arsenal and reputation, growing its customer list and generating hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue from external clients.

Though Palmer seems at home today in this 2,300-sq.-ft. facility on the outskirts of Des Moines, his past includes stints in much larger printing operations running web offset presses — a far cry from the all-digital shop he manages today.

Born in Rockford, Ill., Palmer attended high school in Mt. Morris, Ill. His father worked at a printing company called CCS, where the younger Palmer got his first printing job, recycling lithographic film. His brother also worked in the business, for a large, local printing company named Maxwell Graphics.

“So I guess I kind of just got sucked into it,” laughs Palmer.

He started at Maxwell in the bindery, packing books as they came off the perfect binder. After a couple years, he transferred to the offset division, where he handled paper rolls and plates for the Harris M1000B web offset press.

After doing that for three years, Palmer took a job with Holden Graphic Services, in Rockford, Ill.

Todd Palmer shows off his in-plant’s second Konica Minolta bizhub PRESS C7000, which has helped the shop bring in more outside print work.

“When I started, I ran the Didde 175,” he recalls. “I went to second shift manager after being there about two years.”

He played a key part in the company’s purchase of three new Didde webs.

In 1998 Palmer made a big change. He took a job as plant manager for a printing company in Des Moines, where his future wife had some family. It did not go as planned.

“I lasted there three weeks,” he laughs. “There was so much done wrong at that plant, that I couldn’t stay for the downfall.”

So he accepted a position at General Graphics, a Hamada dealer, where he repaired presses, cutters and folders.

“I’m very mechanical,” he explains.

He enjoyed the work, which included doing sales, but he could also see that presses were not selling very well any more, so he kept his eyes open for other opportunities.

Into the In-plant World

One of his clients was IBA, and when he heard the manager had quit, he applied for the job. In 2001 he started at IBA as manager of the small in-plant, then located in downtown Des Moines.

Todd Palmer, printing coordinator, and print shop assistant, Kristi Junkin, print the Iowa Bankers Association’s Exchange newsletter on the new Konica Minolta bizhub PRESS C7000.

“When I came in they had an old Multigraphics 1260,” he recalls.

He helped convince the association to invest in a new press. When the in-plant relocated to Johnston in Nov. 2001, a new two-color Hamada H234 was ready and waiting. That was when things took off for the in-plant.

“Once [customers] saw quality color … then everybody wanted it,” Palmer says.

It started when a two-color newsletter switched to four colors.

“All the sudden everything started to go to four-color,” he says.

Palmer and his coworker Kristi Junkin struggled to keep up as the demand for color grew, running pieces through the press twice to print all four colors. In 2006, he did a cost justification for a four-color press, and in January 2007 the in-plant installed a Ryobi 3304 — a big deal for such a small in-plant. The new press was immediately busy. Color consistency improved and productivity increased.

“We were able to keep a lot more [work] in-house,” he says.

In the years that followed, Palmer upgraded the shop’s old friction-fed folder with a new Baum Flexifold and added a digital envelope press from PSI Engineering to save money on small runs of envelopes.

Todd Palmer and Kristi­ Junkin stand behind their in-plant’s Xerox J75.

At the end of 2011, Palmer began to notice a drop in the shop’s workload. Fewer IBA mailings were being done. In search of new work, he came up with a great idea: offer the in-plant’s services to IBA’s member banks.

This was a big hit, and the in-plant was soon as busy as ever. In the first year, Palmer says, the shop generated $2,600 from banks and other outside clients; in the second year it made $5,800; by the third year revenue had jumped to $22,650, and it kept growing exponentially. Last year, he says, the in-plant made $165,400 from outside business, and IBA officials were ecstatic.

“They were very happy with the number last year,” he affirms.

Back in 2010, though, when business from member banks was just starting to roll in, Palmer realized he was going to need a digital print solution to handle the short runs. At the time, the in-plant was sharing a four-color Canon image­RUNNER press with the rest of the staff at the association, but he knew that was not the best strategy. So in Sept. 2011, he added a Konica Minolta bizhub PRESS C7000. It cut production time tremendously.

End of an Era

As the demand for short-run color continued to escalate, Palmer began to realize that the days of offset printing were coming to an end. In 2014, he made the decision to pull the plug on the Ryobi and add a Xerox J75 in its place.

“I didn’t want to do it,” he admits. “I’m a press guy.”

But the cost of press chemicals and plates, and the need for faster turnaround times convinced him this was the only viable path forward. He says the transition to a digital workflow was probably the biggest challenge of his career.

More Digital Equipment

As time went by, and external business increased dramatically, the shop was having a tough time producing all of the work on these two machines. So Palmer added a second Konica Minolta bizhub PRESS C7000 with a booklet maker. In 2017, he replaced one of the C7000s with a Konica Minolta bizhub PRESS C1100.

Kristi Junkin and Todd Palmer stand with their new Baum Flexifold folder.

“It’s an incredible machine,” he praises. “It basically [can] produce the same volume as both the 7000s, and the quality [is] so much better.”

After one of the in-plant’s big external clients bought a digital press last year and stopped sending its work to the in-plant, revenues have dipped somewhat. Palmer continues to market the shop’s services to member banks, but he admits it’s difficult to follow up with sales calls, with only two employees in the in-plant. He hopes to eventually be able to bring someone in to make these calls.

Looking back at his many accomplishments, Palmer is most pleased at the amount of external business his in-plant has been able to generate and produce.

“Being so small and bringing in that much income, I’m pretty proud of that,” he says.

He’s also proud of the in-plant’s equipment and the reputation it has built, both internally and in the community.

“I’ve had printers contact me to do envelopes ... or scoring,” he says. “We have some pretty good equipment.”

He credits IBA for allowing him to add the technology he needs.

“I’m very frugal with Iowa Bankers’ money, as if it was my own,” he notes. “In turn, they’ve been very good with buying equipment we’ve needed.”

He says he is currently looking at replacement devices for the J75.

Outside of work, Palmer has used his construction talents to build two of the houses he and his wife Julie have lived in over the years. A big fan of ’80s hard rock, he enjoys attending concerts and has an extensive collection of more than 600 vinyl records. And though his daughter has not shown much interest in following him into the printing industry, Palmer is happy with his decision to become an in-plant manager at IBA.

“I think I did make the right choice,” he says. “They’ve been very good to me.”