In-plant Profiles

When Jon Bedsted was approaching his junior year of high school in Austin, Minn., his dad (who was also his guidance counsellor) made a suggestion.

With parts for its two aging Hamada presses getting scarce, Ohio Northern University Printing Services was at a crossroads. Jobs that the five-employee in-plant couldn't handle were being printed by local vendors, but turnaround times and quality were not always ideal.

It was anything but destiny that led Steve Schmuger to become manager of an in-plant printing operation. Inquisitive and intelligent, he majored in philosophy of science at Boston University—not quite a road map to the printing industry—but possesses a free-flowing nature and a quest for knowledge.

When the United States Department of Defense (US DOD) needs to get a message out to a foreign audience to support its soldiers in the field, it has to act quickly. For this reason, the US DOD maintains a fleet of Kodak NexPress digital presses, along with a contingent of bindery equipment, in several locations around the world. In addition, it is building deployable units, to be stationed where they are most needed.

When a university realizes its in-plant is sitting on prime real estate, that news often leads to a few restless nights for the manager of that shop. That's what happened at Indiana University, when the city of Bloomington decided to develop a technology park on the west side of town, in an area where IU Document Services had been situated for 41 years.

Charlotte Holden was diagnosed with dyslexia as a child, but she has never let the learning disability hold her back. Rather, she has developed and capitalized on numerous learning abilities to achieve personal fulfillment and professional success.

For Bob Wright, the true joy of his job as assistant vice president, Print and Distribution, at Unum Global Programs, comes from helping his company’s business leaders do their jobs better. During the 32 years he has spent with the Chattanooga, Tenn.-based provider of disability, life and voluntary insurance products, Wright has moved his department away from the mindset of simply waiting for jobs to arrive, and reshaped it into a genuine business unit for the company.

Lehigh University's Fall 2012 semester begins on August 23, but Glenn Strause, director of Printing and Mailing Services, is focusing on August 22 as a red-letter day for the college's in-plant. Why? The 22nd marks the planned grand opening of Mail at Campus Square, Lehigh's new full-service post office.

On a December morning in 2009, Michael White walked into his basement in-plant at Queens College to find that a pipe malfunction had filled his shop with two inches of water. "It was like doomsday. It was pretty bad," recalls White, print shop coordinator.

At age 14, Steven Rigby became an Eagle Scout, the highest achievement in the Boy Scouts of America program. As he completed the final leap to the top of the Scouting ranks, he also took his first step toward a top-notch career in printing.