Printing, Pets and Purpose

As a writer and copy editor at her college’s weekly newspaper, Tammy Dunham loved the adrenaline rush she got each Tuesday night: editing late-filed copy, laying out pages, putting the paper to bed so it could be in students’ hands Wednesday morning.

Tammy Dunham

But after graduating from Northeast Missouri State University, what today is Truman State University, she found the idea of an entry-level, low-paying newspaper gig far less exciting.

So she took a job as a proofreader at Ralston Purina in her hometown of St. Louis. Twenty-five years, a few title changes, and an acquisition later, she’s still with the company, now as manager of Print Services for the Nestlé Purina PetCare Co.

“I ended up really loving print, and I think part of it was that deadline-driven aspect of it. Getting something in and getting it moved,” she says. “Just seeing a project from its infancy to the final project — it was similar to what I had done back with newspaper and yearbook, but on a different scale. ”

And though she’s left a career in writing behind in exchange for one in printing, she says the old skills go to good use.

“The good thing is,” she says, “I write a hell of a memo.”

A Quarter Century of Service

Dunham, 48, has spent most of her 25 years with the company in the print shop, save for a few stints in other departments. She became a supervisor in 2002 and manager in 2006. In the years since she joined the team, the size of the shop has stayed consistent: about a dozen employees including press operators, graphic designers and customer service staff.

But the technology has advanced and been updated (no more running down the hall to the plotter shared with the engineering department, Dunham says), and the finished products have become more diverse.

The materials produced by Dunham’s print shop end up across Nestlé Purina’s 2,800-employee, 10-building campus; in stores across the country; in the company’s factories; and at Purina Farms, a dog arena and event center in nearby Gray Summit, Mo.

In addition to the staples, like stationery and business cards, the in-plant produces bookmarks, banners, booklets,

brochures, binders, magnets, name badges, signs and table tents. In recent years, its coupon business has also boomed, Dunham says. The in-plant prints the variable information (e.g., expiration date, value, product image) on a pre-printed shell with a foil holographic image.

Growth in Wide-Format

Dunham says she’s seen the most growth in wide-format printing, with the addition of a 10-color, 64˝ Epson SureColor S70670 and a 42˝ aqueous HP Designjet Z6100 (which she plans to soon replace with an HP Designjet Z6200). The machines are used for canvas-wrapped pictures, photo backdrops used at special events, banners with grommet holes, and prints that can then be mounted to foam core, Sintra and Dibond.

Her team helped merge archival and modern-day photos in a campaign centered around the company’s “5 Tall” pillars: Stand Tall, Think Tall, Smile Tall, Live Tall and Create Tall. Banner stands featuring the pillars were set up on every floor of the campus, Dunham says.

“We get a lot of, ‘I want to do this but I’m not exactly sure how.’ So we pride ourselves on taking the challenge and the objective and trying to make something really work for the customer,” she says. “Sometimes you have to rein them back in but we always are problem solvers.”

Dunham says providing those products in-house, especially under tight deadlines, also means a substantial cost savings for clients who otherwise would be paying rush charges at an outside print shop.

Dunham says she expects her in-plant to only continue to trend more digital, especially as she anticipates the retirement of several of her long-time staff, including two press operators.

“I think there are still people out there being trained on offset devices but we’re not a big four-color shop. I don’t think they’re going to be looking to come work on an older two-color press,” she says. “I just think that our niche is going to swing more toward digital.”

Digital Color Upgrade

In that vein, Dunham most recently added a Ricoh Pro C7110x color printer to the shop. The new machine, installed in April to replace a Xerox Color 800, gives her staff the ability to run projects digitally that previously would have been run on a press, like envelopes.

The evolution in her industry and her own shop is part of what Dunham says has kept her at Purina for so long. Married with one son, Dunham calls herself a “hometown girl” and enjoys cheering on the Cardinals at Busch Stadium, just a few blocks from the Purina campus.

As the company has given her new challenges, she says, she’s never considered looking elsewhere. A few years ago, she was even thrown a curveball completely outside of her comfort zone — managing the campus’s company store. She took on the task and hasn’t looked back.

She says that Nestlé Purina is a great place to work. The company is consistently ranked among the nation’s best workplaces based on factors like compensation, work/life balance and overall culture. And it doesn’t hurt that employees can bring their pets to work, though Dunham’s 17-year-old, black-and-white American Shorthair cat, Maggie, stays home.

“She would not be amused,” she says with a laugh.

But the many dogs hanging around the office do the trick.

“Sometimes when you just need a break, it’s nice to get on the floor and give somebody a belly rub,” she says. “It just makes your day better.”