Maggie Dewitt

CINDY HOHMAN is not one to back down from a challenge. The Marion, Ind., native, and future Office Services supervisor for American Electric Power (AEP), was the lone female graduate when she earned her Associate Architectural Engineering degree in 1985 from ITT Tech, in Fort Wayne. She ranked fourth in her class. When Hohman began her career in the construction industry, she was the only woman at her first two jobs—working for an architect that designed churches and for a builder specializing in new home construction. Given her drive, it’s not surprising that Hohman went on to head up an in-plant for one of

WHEN ROBERT Gomez was hired as a press operator for the Texas Senate in 1974, the in-plant was housed in the basement of the state capitol building. It was staffed by a supervisor, a secretary and three production employees. Layout involved mat boards, wax machines and spray adhesives, and hand-developed film was stripped up on light tables. Thirty-three years later, Gomez—who was appointed director of senate publications and printing in 1985—oversees 20 staff members in a facility that occupies more than 20,000 square feet. The journey along his career path began when Gomez was just a kid growing up in Austin, Texas, where

HAD IT not been for Vietnam, Gary Boyd might never have become a printer. Instead, the manager of Iowa State University Printing & Copy Services would probably be an independent contractor today, managing his own construction company. One of five children born in a small, central California town to parents possessed of a nomadic spirit, Boyd traveled around quite a bit as a child. He attended schools throughout the state, before eventually graduating from high school in the East Bay region of California. “My father and older brothers were all involved in the construction industry,” says Boyd. So from an early age, he was

BORN AND raised in Newton, Mass., Bruce MacDonald was jokingly referred to as the “token Presbyterian” when he started his job as a printer with the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston (RCAB). In 1984, it was a big deal for a Protestant to be working for the Catholic church. Today, employees’ religious persuasions are quite varied. Back then, MacDonald was preparing to get married and buy a house with the woman he has been happily sharing his life with for the past 23 years, and he needed more job stability. Financial difficulties at Barker Press, a small shop in the city of Watertown, where he

DAN STRODTMAN was 12 years old and living in Joliet, Ill., during the late ’60s when he began helping the next door neighbor, who ran a part-time printing business out of his garage. Fascinated with the old letterpress and other tools of the trade, Strodtman learned the California job case—a drawer with compartments that held lead type for letterpress printing—and soon was assisting with setting up and running business cards and forms. “From that time on, I have always been a printer,” says Strodtman, director of Printing Services at Valley View School District, in Romeoville, Ill. Graphic arts courses in high school

MIKE SCHRADER, his wife, Deb, and their two sons—Rob, 13, and Pete, 11—reside in a small town halfway between the Green Bay Packers and the Milwaukee Brewers. Schrader was born and raised here, in Berlin, Wis., just northwest of the Fond du Lac headquarters of Mercury Marine, where he is manager of Printing & Mailing Solutions. As far back as he can recall Schrader had an interest in graphics and drawing. While in high school, he painted signs and vehicles for local businesses. He went on to receive an Associate Degree in Commercial Art in 1984 from Western Wisconsin Technical College, in LaCrosse, Wis.,

A FORMER music major, Jane Bloodworth was working as an outside salesperson at an office supply company when fate intervened. A friend who owned an advertising agency asked her to volunteer as a coordinator on a large dairy industry kitting project. “He was impressed with my abilities and ended up hiring me,” recalls Bloodworth, business manager for the World Bank’s Printing, Graphics and Map Design unit in Washington, D.C. “It was a small agency, and I had an opportunity to do everything from writing and editing to production management and press approvals.” Bloodworth went on to become the director of travel