In-plant Profiles

Old-fashioned printing techniques are kept alive at historic print shops around the country. If you're struggling with a less-than-modern press in your in-plant, take heart: Compared with the printers of old, your press is like lightning. How would you like it if your top press speed was 180 sheets an hour, and setting type for one sheet required half a day of labor? This is what being a printer meant in the 18th and 19th centuries. But while the wooden presses of Ben Franklin's day have mostly made way for today's high-speed marvels, they're not completely gone. Historic villages and museums around the country

Since childhood, Mike Sprayberry has loved printing. His enthusiasm has helped First Tennessee Bank's in-plant prosper. YOU MIGHT say printing is in Mike Sprayberry's blood, but even if it isn't it's definitely under his skin—and he couldn't be happier. Sprayberry, 51, is print shop manager at First Tennessee Bank, in Memphis, just down the road from his birth place of Covington, Tenn. When he was eight, his mother remarried and moved the family of two boys and five girls to Memphis, where they began working in their step-father's print shop. It was there that Sprayberry first caught the printing bug and received the ink

Marvin "Pete" Beck has guided his in-plant through many changes in his 26 years at Geisinger Health System—including both a merger and a de-merger. Marvin C. "Pete" Beck is a modest man, prone to deflect praise toward his team of print professionals at Geisinger Health System, in Danville, Pa. "I'm just an operations guy," he demurs. But Beck's accomplishments speak for him. Notably, he guided his in-plant through a merger three years ago with Hershey Medical Center of the Penn State Health System, then navigated the de-merger ("You can call it a divorce," he says) this year. Beck and his team had seven

Steady improvement over six years turned the once meager in-plant at Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Maine into an award winner. WHEN ANDREW Haynes started working at Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Maine in 1994, the in-plant wasn't exactly state-of-the-art. "The equipment was so old that you really couldn't do anything with it," the prepress and press production specialist recalls. But help was on the way—in the form of a two-color, 26˝ Heidelberg MOZ press. Haynes arrived at the beginning of a six-year period of growth that turned the South Portland, Maine, in-plant into a high-production, award-winning facility. These changes not

When new technology changed the way engineering documents were produced, Lockwood Greene upgraded its in-plant to keep pace. When Lockwood Greene emptied its Boston warehouse, the 168-year-old engineering company released over 80 percent of it's archive to the Smithsonian Institute. A good portion of the rest went to David Rush's archive at the company's Spartenburg, S.C., Document Management Services department. "I've got records from the 1870s," says Rush, manager of the department. Rush says he enjoys rummaging through the archive room, located across the hall from his office. The nine-person in-plant produces engineering documents and revisions, project specifications, cost reports, meeting minutes, studies and

After creating Missouri's state printing operation out of several scattered shops, Gary Judd worked tirelessly to grow it into the powerhouse it is today. This article was published in September, 2000. Gary Judd passed away in November, 2002. Prior to 1980, government printing in the state of Missouri was a bit disorganized. There were 17 scattered print shops, each using outdated equipment. And then Gary Judd took charge. Under his leadership, 12 of these in-plants were consolidated into one centralized unit—and that operation has grown from $1.5 million in sales in its first year to $7.1 million in fiscal year 1999.

Aggressive self-promotion by the Darden Restaurants in-plant earns its supervisor a promotion to Director. When Warren Lombardy learned that Darden Restaurants had promoted him to director of creative group/printing services, he immediately went to work—planning a party for his staff. This is a typical move for Lombardy, 39, an in-plant self-promotion wizard who shuns the spotlight when it falls on himself. "This promotion is a sign of the team," he says. "A good manager is as good as his or her people. I think I've lined myself up with a good team." That team, he says, has done some great work for Orlando-based Darden

Meldisco's in-plant prints for three retail shoe chains—and insources to boot. MIKE KAPLAN loves challenging his in-plant. As if Meldisco Printing Services wasn't busy enough tackling nearly 5,000 jobs a year for three major shoe chains, Kaplan also finds the time to insource more than $100,000 of business each year. "It's been working out great for years," he says. Kaplan started insourcing eight years ago when Meldisco—the Mahwah, N.J., company that owns and operates all of K-Mart's shoe departments—was a division of the Melville Corp. He printed for Melville divisions that did not have in-plants. "I saw the opportunity to generate income and

Rob Lilley spent seven years learning graphic arts in the army. He uses his military experience to manage New Jersey Transit's in-plant. Rob Lilley discovered his love of graphic arts in a very unlikely place—the United States Army. Now, as manager of print graphics at New Jersey Transit, he uses his military skills to run an efficient—and growing—in-plant. Under Lilley's management, the in-plant grew from 5,000 to 25,000 square feet, and went from producing 16 million pieces a year up to 44 million pieces, mostly schedules, forms and stationery. Lilley, 51, was born in San Antonio Texas. His father was an engineer whose

In its first appearance in the In-Print contest, SAFECO took top honors with a colorful marketing piece that required lots of attention to detail. As a perk for its top agents, SAFECO organizes an annual event called the "Conference of Champions," which brings the company's top producers together to attend workshops, mingle with executives and make new friends. Next year that conference will take place in both Vienna, Austria, and Carlsbad, Calif. To motivate its independent agents to work harder and qualify for the free conference, the Seattle-based insurance and financial services firm wanted to send out a quality marketing piece, bursting with color