In-plant Profiles

A name change gave Tom Neckvatal the perfect opportunity to move his shop to an electronic workflow. He jumped at the chance and hasn't looked back. PRINTING WAS not in Tom Neckvatal's plans when he was attending the University of Wisconsin back in 1966. But when he heard of an opening at the university print shop for a part-time press operator, the business administration and economics undergrad grabbed the position. "I needed a job, and that was the only thing available," he explains. Neckvatal was groomed on a Multilith 1250 press, and he hasn't left the in-plant environment since. Today, after working

School district in-plants print everything from tests to textbooks. Our exclusive survey and detailed in-plant profiles will teach you all you want to know. Our survey of school district in-plants pulled in an impressive 208 responses. The majority of these in-plants are small, single-person operations. Many of them combine graphic arts instruction and printing, sometimes using students to produce the schools' materials. We received 45 responses from in-plants that exist primarily as classrooms—21.6 percent of the total—but we opted not to include their data in our results so that we could focus on in-plants whose primary purpose is to print the materials that

In his 18 years with the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia, Domenic Vallone has consolidated and strengthened the printing and mailing operations. When he started at St. Joseph's College in Philadelphia in 1971, Domenic Vallone had never given printing much thought. But since he was attending school on a work scholarship, he willingly accepted his assignment to the print shop. "I would go to classes, and then I would go there and spend three hours a day collating and delivering," he recalls. He didn't mind the work, but he admits "I don't think I would have picked printing if I had been given a

For in-plants serving religious organizations, printing takes on a much deeper meaning. In her white habit and black veil, Sister Mary Jeremiah blends in well with the other 27 Dominican nuns at the Monastery of the Infant Jesus as they go about their daily routine of work and prayer. But when she throws a coverall apron over her habit and fires up her Multi 1250, one thing becomes instantly clear: She's a printer. Sister Jeremiah has been running the in-plant at her Lufkin, Texas-based monastery for eight years. She's the third printer the monastery has had since it started its in-plant in

University of California Printing Services Berkeley, Calif. Annual sales/budget: $15,877,189 Full-time employees: 186 Jobs printed per year: 5,000 To satisfy the printing needs of some 140,000 University of California students attending nine campuses across the state, University of California-Berkeley Printing Services has needed to be flexible. According to George Craig, printing services director, there have been many changes over the years, especially with the emergence of digital technology. Craig recalls bringing in photocomposition and computer business management systems in the '80s, before moving to the direct-to-plate processes and computer-controlled presses of today. Through it all, Craig says, his staff has excelled at adapting to the changes.

Allstate Print Communications Center Wheeling, Ill. Operating Budget: $30 million Full-time employees: 361 Part-time employees: 84 Jobs printed per year: 20,000 To keep a huge operation like the Allstate Print Communications Center productive and cost-effective, its management team must meet the challenges of changing technology and staggering workloads—while keeping costs low and bringing top-notch service to customers. "We are very successful at answering our company's printing needs and providing the most cost-effective solutions," explains Bob Tierney, print communication director. "Our cost-effectiveness is clearly our greatest strength." The Allstate Print Communications Center is not only a leader within its company, but also in the printing industry. It has

Boeing Printing & Output Service Seattle Annual sales/budget: $56 million Full-time employees: 330 Jobs printed per year: 240,000 Bill Walker, senior manager of printing operations at Boeing, has seen a lot of changes in his 33 years—and he knows that as soon as one technology is mastered, it's time to prepare for the next. "We've about maxed out the gains in our printing operation," says Walker of the shift from camera ready art to the digital original. "Ten years ago, it was tough to get an electronic original because customers didn't think that way. Today, 95 percent of our originals come to us digitally." That change

Wal-Mart Printing & Mailing Distribution Center Bentonville, Ark. Annual sales: $22,052.310 Operating budget: $22,037,626 Sales minus costs: $10,858,458 Full-time employees: 325 Jobs printed per year: 12,000+ As the largest general merchandiser in the world, Wal-Mart Stores serves more than 100 million customers weekly at its 2,485 stores. In Fortune magazine's latest Fortune 500 list, the 37-year-old company overtook Exxon to become the third largest firm in the U.S. So it's only fitting that a company of this magnitude also has one of the country's top in-plants. Located about a mile from Wal-Mart's Bentonville, Ark., headquarters, Wal-Mart Printing & Mailing Distribution Center (PMDC) boasts 325 employees—or "associates," in the company's

University of Washington Publications Services, Seattle Annual sales: $15.8 million Operating budget: $16.2 million Full-time employees: 162 Part-time employees: 110 Jobs printed per year: 6,500 At 48,000 square feet in size and with 270 full- and part-time employees, University of Washington Publications Services is a monster of a university in-plant. And Acting Director Frank Davis predicts it will only get bigger—in terms of services, if nothing else. Of course, when you're serving a campus of 36,000 students and 18,000 faculty and staff members, it's hard to keep things on a small scale. Take color printing for example: A year ago, the Copy Services division averaged 10,000 to 15,000 color

California Office Of State Publishing Sacramento, Calif. Annual sales: $61,333,656 Operating budget: $57,996,000 Full-time employees: 456 Part-time employees: 21 Jobs printed per year: 24,380 When the California Office of State Publishing (OSP) installed a new eight-color Heidelberg M-1000B web press recently it was major news in the in-plant world, where such giant webs are rare. Still, for OSP the installation was, in a way, just a continuation of the growth it experienced through much of the 1990s. "We went [from] having some of the most obsolete technology in our greater Sacramento area, to having some of the most current, sophisticated technology, especially in prepress and in our digital print