The Canadian Perspective
FOR THE second year in a row I spent a few days with Canadian in-plant managers recently at the College and University Print Management Association of Canada (CUPMAC) conference.
It took place this year in St. John’s, Newfoundland, which sits on an island so far east you can almost touch Europe. Even the local accents have a strong dose of Irish in them. The cliffs, the colorful wooden houses, the view of the harbor from atop Signal Hill, all left me with pleasant memories, as did the rare string of sunny days that accompanied the conference.
Memorial University of Newfoundland hosted CUPMAC, which is similar to the Association of College and University Printers (ACUP), though without the large attendance figures. Still, despite the long flights involved, this year’s event drew twice as many as last year’s, with almost 40 managers making the trip.
CUPMAC folks were just as open and willing to share stories about their in-plants as university managers in the States. In fact, I noticed that shop talk continued during the social functions more than it usually does at ACUP.
CUPMAC was fortunate to have Frank Romano, professor emeritus at Rochester Institute of Technology, as the main speaker this year. He offered his often droll observations of the printing industry, past, present and future.
I also gave a couple of presentations (not nearly as amusing as Frank’s) in which I reported the latest statistics on the in-plant industry, offered case studies of innovative university in-plants and suggested new services in-plants could add.
Conference host Boyd Cranford brought us to his in-plant, where we saw the shop’s new chemistry-free Kodak Magnus 400S platesetter in action, plus the shop’s DocuTechs and Heidelberg presses.
I shot video of the conference and hope to have it available soon on our Web site. Speaking of which, IPG is about to relaunch our site, with a host of new features, so be sure to check it out.
As for other in-plant conferences, this month both the National Government Printing Association conference and the Big Ten Printing and Copyright conference are taking place. I plan to attend one of them. If you see me there, be sure to say hello.
- Companies:
- Eastman Kodak Co.
- Heidelberg
- People:
- Frank Romano
- St. John