Tony Seaman Retires

Yesterday was a big day in Oxford, Miss. After 16 years as director of Printing and Graphic Services at the University of Mississippi, Tony Seaman retired. He handed off the reigns to long-time Associate Director Hilarie Bain.

About 150 people attended a reception for Seaman yesterday in the Lyceum, the university’s first building, completed in 1848. Tom Eppes, chief communications officer, addressed the crowd, thanking Seaman for his service to the university and noting his many years of experience in the printing industry. Seaman received a watch in gratitude for his service (along with a framed cover of IPG's June 2008 issue, on which he appeared).

Seaman, who entered the industry in 1961 as an apprentice camera operator in his native England, is also president of the In-Plant Printing and Mailing Association (IPMA). Admired for his visionary leadership, he grew the in-plant at Ole Miss from an analog print operation to a state-of-the-art digital media and graphics center.

Before departing, he made sure the in-plant was equipped for the future by adding slitting/scoring/perfing equipment, a tabletop perfect binder, a foil fusing machine, FusionPro variable data printing software and EFI's Digital StoreFront. The in-plant was also chosen by Ricoh to test its award-winning Clickable Paper
technology. Seaman gave a presentation about this technology in Las Vegas this week at the PODi AppForum.

Despite retiring, Seaman plans to make at least one more appearance in the in-plant world when he attends the IPMA conference in San Mateo, Calif., in June.