One Team, Many Talents
In the world of government printing — especially inside a union environment — it’s not unusual to hear about silos, rigid roles, and a casual attitude toward deadlines. That’s why Scott Plaskiewicz says Contra Costa County Print and Mail Services is something rare: a truly unified team that takes pride in stepping up wherever the work demands it.
“I’ve been in printing for a long time, and this is the most talented, cohesive team that I’ve ever worked with,” praises Plaskiewicz, Print and Mail Services Manager for the Concord, California-based in-plant. After 20 years in commercial printing and several years running Bio-Rad’s in-plant, he doesn’t offer such praise lightly.
From left: Scott Plaskiewicz, Ryan Hancock, and Yashar Abdelnaby discuss a run of 22,000 packets being printed for Employment and Human Services on Contra Costa County Print and Mail Services’ Canon varioPRINT iX3200 cut-sheet inkjet press. | All photos courtesy Contra Costa County
“It’s kind of rare, especially for a government union in-plant,” he adds. “A lot of times people want to stick in their lane … but I have such a good crew that people want to get the jobs done. Everybody’s willing to help out to ensure that we get the best quality job out.”
With 29 employees and a $6.2 million budget, Print and Mail Services is the country’s 11th largest government in-plant, according to In-plant Impressions’ ranking of the largest in-plants by annual sales. Its offset, toner, and inkjet presses pump out between 4.5 and 5 million impressions a month.
Serving the 1.2 million residents of Contra Costa County, which lies just east of San Francisco, the operation provides an assortment of services: offset and digital printing, wide-format, fulfillment, mailing, and even courier services. But its chief strength, Plaskiewicz points out, may be the in-plant’s focus on document security.
“One of the biggest advantages that we have is the security factor,” he explains, pointing to the steady stream of critical work coming from departments like the tax collector and Contra Costa Health. “Since there’s no outside vendor, everything is just transferred from one department to us. Plus, we offer a faster turnaround.”
Inkjet Brings ‘Amazing’ Benefits
Critical to providing that faster turnaround is the in-plant’s Canon varioPRINT iX3200 cut-sheet inkjet press, installed in April 2025. It replaced a Xerox Baltoro, giving the in-plant more speed, better reliability, and higher quality.
“Coming from the offset world, when I first started seeing digital printing, I was never super thrilled with it,” Plaskiewicz says. “When I saw the iX3200 in person, I was pretty impressed. The quality of it … it’s pretty amazing.”
From left: Scott Plaskiewicz, Ryan Hancock, and Yashar Abdelnaby.
The iX3200’s ability to print on both coated and uncoated sheets has been a particular boon, enabling the shop to print a 26,000-copy quarterly newsletter for the county employees’ retirement association on 70-lb. coated silk text paper, something the Baltoro could not do.
“The customer was just thrilled,” Plaskiewicz says.
The Canon varioPRINT iX3200 cut-sheet inkjet press.
The iX3200 also helped the in-plant bring in work from cities around the county.
“A lot of them are used to having everything … printed on either gloss text or cover,” he notes. “With the ability to print the coated variable through the iX, we can give them a pretty good price on everything.”
This helped seal a deal to take on all print work from the City of Concord, he says. Another advantage the in-plant offers outside customers: “We don’t charge tax,” Plaskiewicz says.
Marketing Helps Expand Business
Reaching out to new external and internal customers has helped Plaskiewicz expand the in-plant’s business. Compared with 10 years ago, he says, Print and Mail Services has grown by about 40%. It now operates out of a 22,000-sq.-ft. facility eight miles from the county administration office in Martinez. The in-plant consolidated two shops into this ground level, window-lit facility in 2021.
Being separated from county offices has not impeded the in-plant at all, he says, because it is in charge of interoffice courier services. His five drivers cover 10 routes around the county, picking up and delivering jobs frequently.
Envelope printing makes up a large portion of the in-plant’s work, and it uses both offset and inkjet envelope presses. Here, Czarnie Alinsod loads #10 envelopes into the W+D Halm i-Jet 2 inkjet press.
“We’re in the county administration building four times a day,” he says. “We’re in the finance building three times a day.”
The in-plant prints a variety of variable and static work for the county, such as notices, reports, brochures, business cards, letterhead, envelopes, budget books, posters, banners, and rigid signage. Each night, Health and Human Services uploads 12 VDP jobs — such as appointment notices and service authorizations — that operators download and print first thing in the morning. The in-plant prints financial reports and budget books, either saddle stitching or perfect binding them.
Ling Zhu checks address placement on envelopes running on the Bowe Crossfusion inserter.
The shop prints business cards 12-up on its Canon imagePRESS V1000. Because it has the long-sheet feeder, the V1000 also prints trifold 8.5x11" brochures and landscape-format booklets, in addition to training packets punched with the in-line three-hole finisher.
Print and Mail Services does a considerable amount of black-and-white work, such as packets for Employment and Human Services, which are printed on the shop’s two Canon varioPRINT VP6180 TITANs, one a TPXP model. The in-plant prints about 22,000 of these packets per month.
Offset Still Important
Kim Tieu hangs plates on the two-color Heidelberg Quickmaster for a run of carbonless forms for the sherrif’s department.
The shop still runs a sheetfed offset press: a two-color Heidelberg Quickmaster. This comes in handy for large-volume jobs, such as runs of 75,000 to 100,000 carbonless forms for the sherrif’s department. The in-plant also has a Halm offset envelope press for long-run jobs, such as a recent run of 1 million envelopes for tax bills. Smaller runs of envelopes are printed digitally on a W+D Halm i-Jet 2 press. Plaskiewicz hopes to get a second digital envelope press in the next fiscal year.
One area that’s seen a lot of growth is wide-format. The in-plant uses an HP 315 printer/cutter and a Xante X-55 flatbed to print posters, banners, wall and window graphics, and some rigid signage. A Colex automated cutter is on order to further expand the shop’s capabilities.
The finishing department, with six employees, handles everything from bindery work to outgoing mail, including daily health services notices that move right to the mail operation as soon as they come off the press. With two inserters, two mail meters, and drivers who pre-sort jobs by class and priority, the team keeps a range of county and city mailings flowing smoothly through the operation. The in-plant also has six people handling fulfillment: hand inserting forms into packets and envelopes, and affixing stickers onto items.
On the front end, jobs come into the shop via its Ricoh MarcomCentral Web-to-print system, which is being transitioned over to Print Shop Pro, from edu Business Solutions. The in-plant employs two graphic designers, whose skills Plaskiewicz praises.
Anelica Cruz prints a foam core job on the in-plant’s Xante X-55 flatbed printer for the Department of Conservation and Development.
With an array of advanced equipment and a dedicated team, Print and Mail Services is well positioned to continue doing great work for Contra Costa County. Plaskiewicz never rests in his effort to bring even more work in-house to reduce costs for county residents.
“A lot of the things that we used to always have to send out, now we have the capabilities to do in-house,” he says.
Though he has a good relationship with the finance and purchasing departments, and the in-plant enjoys strong support from the county, Plaskiewicz continues to promote the shop’s services.
“I want to continue to do outreach,” he says, “because I know we definitely have the capacity to do more work in-house.”
Bob has served as editor of In-plant Impressions since October of 1994. Prior to that he served for three years as managing editor of Printing Impressions, a commercial printing publication. Mr. Neubauer is very active in the U.S. in-plant industry. He attends all the major in-plant conferences and has visited 200 in-plant operations around the world. He has given presentations to numerous in-plant groups in the U.S., Canada and Australia, including the Association of College and University Printers and the In-plant Printing and Mailing Association. He also coordinates the annual In-Print contest, co-sponsored by IPMA and In-plant Impressions.
