In-plant Profiles

Ted Bailey didn’t need a crystal ball to know that changes were coming. “We saw the trend moving not just to more color, but to more sophisticated variable data campaigns,” says Bailey, manager of Printing and Graphics Services at Boise State University. The 15-employee western Idaho in-plant had done some simple black-and-white variable printing jobs, and its 32-ppm Canon printer was doing its best to meet color demands. But clearly the busy shop needed a faster, more variable-data-friendly color printer. So this past summer, after a lengthy bidding process, the in-plant installed a Xerox iGen3 digital production press with an EFI Fiery server. “I

WHEN RAJ Nadrajan took the job as director of Document Solutions at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, British Columbia, he knew the in-plant needed change. Upon his arrival he discovered the full extent of the task ahead of him and admits it gave him pause. “After my first few weeks when I joined the operation, I did not have much hope that the operation would make it,” Nadrajan remembers. “I even considered going back to my last position, but stayed to challenge my ability to make the operation one of the best in the industry.” Five years later that goal has become

The Delaware State Legislature may not realize it, but when their session starts in January, for the first time all of their legislation will be printed digitally. The four-employee legislative print shop has just replaced its offset duplicators with a pair of Xerox DocuTech 6115 printers with Freeflow workflow and a stacker/stapler/tape binding system. “It’s great,” proclaims Deborah Messina, Print Room supervisor, adding, “It’s really quiet in here.” She jokes that, without the presses, she and her staff have not ruined any of their clothes with ink stains lately. “And our hands are rather clean,” she adds. Though the shop has a Duplo DP-460H duplicator

Sure, “old and reliable” equipment has its advantages. But with nearly 30 years behind it, the saddle stitcher at the Texas State Senate’s in-plant had seen better days. “It finally got to the point where I couldn’t get any more parts for it,” says Robert Gomez, director of publications at the 18-employee in-plant. So he recently added a new Rosback 201CD stitcher with two quick-clamping stitch heads, two head alignment gauges, a book sensor and a stagger stitch feature. It can output between 1,800 and 5,000 books per hour, with a maximum size of 12x15˝. The books and brochures being produced on the stitcher are of

ONE OF an in-plant manager’s greatest fears is a shutdown. Walter Leonard has felt the power of that threat three times during his tenure with Sonoma State University General Services. But proving its worth has kept him managing for 17 years. Born and raised in San Francisco, Leonard attended a local college until his father passed away, then he went to work full time. He took a position with San Francisco-based distributor WJ Lancaster. Starting as a clerk in the mail room, he occasionally filled in for the duplicator operator. The company eventually purchased a MultiLith 1250 and he started doing full-color work. Leonard grew

Process color printing is a booming business at the University of Alabama. Printing Services has just added its second four-color press, a 26˝ Sakurai 466SIP two-over-two convertible perfector. It replaced a two-color, 26˝ press. At one time, the 31-employee operation, based in Tuscaloosa, ran its four-color jobs on two-color presses. Then the demand for four-color recruiting materials, newsletters, brochures and alumni publications got so great that the shop invested in a four-color 29˝ Sakurai 474P press, back in June of 2002. “Once we installed that first machine and our quality improved dramatically, it just grew,” explains Bill May, director of Printing Services. “Demand exceeded capacity, and

Auburn University’s CopyCat operation held a successful week-long open house recently to promote its services to both staff and students. To get staff interested, the in-plant sent out messages in a bottle describing what CopyCat does and inviting them to the shop to claim a prize. “If they brought us a job, they got to register for a grand prize,” says Glenda Miley, manager. “We actually had people go back to their office to bring us something to print so they could enter.” During this event, the shop also held a Welcome Student Day and gave away promotional products like note pads, pens, pencils and

Sometimes, when you add a digital press, work just walks in off the street. Like the 2,700 newsletters the geology department sent to Imaging Services one day at the University of Colorado at Boulder. “They heard we got some new color press, and they just said, ‘Oh, we’ve been sending this out. Would you try to do it?’” says Al Goranson, operations manager. That color press is an HP Indigo 3050, which arrived at the shop in June. Since then it’s opened a few doors for the in-plant. “There’s just no way we could have even touched that [job] with two-color offset or with our digital

WORLDWIDE PRINTING experience is not something many mangers can put on their resumes. Tony Seaman can, though. Now director of the Publishing Center at the University of Mississippi, in Oxford, Seaman was born and raised in Binbrook, England. He took an early interest in printing because of his father, who was a lithographer for 50 years. In 1961, Seaman started as an apprentice camera operator at W. Heffer & Sons, in Cambridge. He spent seven years doing rule and paste work and converting line art and pictures into film. He graduated from the London College of Printing in 1967, and went on to be a

For years the two-person in-plant at Folsom Cordova Unified School District toiled to produce the district’s worksheets, curriculum materials, tests and yearbooks with a six-year-old Xerox DocuTech 6115 and a DocuColor 12. Requests for new equipment fell on deaf ears—not surprising considering the years of budget cutbacks that California schools have endured. Then, unexpectedly, something changed. “California revenues have really turned around, so the governor increased the education budget,” says Doug Parrish, lead printer at the FCUSD Printing Department. That, in turn, prompted the district to spring for three printers: • A Xerox DocuTech 6135 with a Freeflow front end, an interposer and a bookletmaker. •