Supporting Our Nation Through Print

Kenneth Stopinski

Kenneth Stopinski’s journey in print began one day in high school when he went on a field trip to a local print shop.

“I remember standing next to a small duplicator and watching the operator,” Stopinski recalls. “And I was so fascinated by the ink rollers turning and going back and forth, oscillating, and then the blank sheets of paper going through the impression cylinder. It’s coming out at the other end and I’m like ‘wow, it’s from nothing to something.’”

Fast forward almost 40 years, and today, Stopinski is the branch head of the Facilities & Support Services Division for Printing & Publications Management at the U.S. Department of the Navy. With his in-plant inside the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., he oversees a variety of administrative and operations management areas like printing, graphics, and reproduction services.

So how did Stopinski go from being fascinated on a field trip to running print operations for an entity like the Navy? It all started with a mentor.

The Military/Print Partnership

Stopinski explains that because he didn’t discover printing until his senior year at Riverhead High School on Long Island, New York, he was only able to attend one year of the technical high school’s print program. He enjoyed that year a lot, and to this day he’ll never forget his teacher, Mr. Caruso.

“He told me about his experience. He told me, ‘Oh yeah, back in the Korean War, I was in the Army, and I was in printing in the Army,’ and I remember thinking that was so cool,” Stopinski says. “At the time I was fascinated with the military and printing, and I said, ‘You know what? Why don’t I just try to see if the military offers that?’”

And he did just that. He marched right down to the recruiting office and told them he wanted to print for the Army. Unfortunately, his timing was off. They told him they didn’t need more printers.

“When they told me that I turned around to leave, and I’ll never forget walking out the door and they were like, ‘No, come back, come back.’ Then two or three days later, they gave me a call and told me they had a slot for me in printing,” Stopinski says.

For the next 20 years, Stopinski was printing for the military. He did several tours in South Korea and printed everything from technical manuals and regulation publications to serving in “special operations” where he and a team of people would print leaflets that would later be dropped from the sky to urge the enemy to surrender.

Life After the Military

Stopinski retired from the military in February 2002, and from there he went on to work as a print specialist for the U.S. Government Printing Office. He did that for four years, and in 2006 he accepted the position as chief of printing management for Army Publishing. It would be his first time managing a team of employees.

“While I was still working as a print specialist, my friend John came and dropped a job announcement on my desk, and when I saw it was with the Army I said, ‘I was in the Army for 20 years, John, I don’t want to go back.’ But he insisted I apply,” Stopinski says. “And so I did, and when I was reading the job description I noticed that it said I’d be supervising 14 employees and I remember thinking to myself, ‘14 employees?’ But I went ahead and applied anyway. At the end of the day, it was a promotion.”

Even after being urged to apply, Stopinski was initially denied the position. However, with his bachelor’s degree in business administration and management from the University of Maryland, and his years of experience to boot, he wasn’t going to let that slide.

He called for a manual review of his resume by human resources, and three days later he got a call offering him the job. To this day, he still advises his son, also a federal employee, to challenge something when he feels he’s qualified for it.

After eight years in his position with the Army, Stopinski says he needed a change. So he made a “lateral movement” to the U.S. Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Prisons, where he worked as the program and operations manager.

“When I was brought on, they had three large in-plants in different low and medium security federal prisons, but they wanted me to help close one of them,” Stopinski says. “So, I did cost and workload analysis and, eventually we closed the in-plant at Leavenworth Federal Prison, and I divided out the work between the two remaining in-plants, which are still open to this day.”

During his years working with these in-plants, Stopinski spent a lot of time with the inmates, whom he treated just as he did everyone else.

“I’d be standing right there with inmates who were running the bindery, and I’d always tell them, ‘Hey guys, you’re doing a great job, and I appreciate everything you’re doing,’ and that went a long way for them. I know it did,” Stopinski says.

From the Army to the Navy

Even though Stopinski says he loved his time working for the Department of Justice, when an opportunity with the Navy appeared in October of 2018, he couldn’t pass it up. And now he can say he’s worked for the two biggest branches of the military, the Army and the Navy.

Stopinski still loves what he does. He and his six-person team are responsible for supporting the Navy secretariat.

“What we do, it’s very important for the overall mission. We do everything under the sun that’s comparable to a regular print shop ... business cards, brochures, booklets, you name it,” Stopinski says. “But then we also get really important information that I’m not allowed to go into much detail about, but I can tell you one time we got a call from a Navy ship in the middle of the ocean asking us if we could get something done.”

But perhaps even beyond getting to serve his country through print, Stopinski says one of his most valuable contributions is lifting up his employees. He makes sure that the work they’re doing never goes unnoticed, and that they know their work is directly impacting and supporting sailors who are overseas. He also takes the time to mentor his greener employees.

“Every three months or so I have a sit-down with my junior employees just to check in because I care. That’s who I am, and I think what I’m saying to them is starting to sink in,” Stopinski says. “I always tell them, I just want them to be successful, and I’m always trying to steer them in the right direction.”

In the same vein of mentoring his employees, he also never misses an opportunity to thank them. He explains that he’s been blessed with the wisdom that thanking people is the best way to motivate them.

“I don’t micromanage. That’s how you create a good work force. That’s how you get people to do the best job they can, by thanking them and making them feel seen,” he says. “But one of my favorite things to do as a manager is praise people, and if they make a mistake I tell them it’s OK, as long as they learn from it.”

And though some may see working for the federal government as a thankless task, Stopinski wouldn’t trade it for the world.

“I love what I do,” he says. “I love supporting our nation’s war fighters and everything they do out in the field.”