In-plant Profiles

From road construction to university printing, Joe Goss' customer service skills have served him well. by Bob Neubauer "No previous printing experience needed." Those were the words on the job notice that caught Joe Goss' eye back in 1985. After 12 years in the road construction business, he was starting to wonder about his future. The slumping economy was taking its toll on business. Figuring he had nothing to lose, Goss applied for the job as director of Indiana University Printing Services, in Bloomington. Much to his surprise, he was called for an interview. That interview revealed that the in-plant, though very proficient

Pete Hoekema was just one month into his job as graphics manager at Muskegon Community College when his pink slip arrived. It was 1976 and the western Michigan college had decided its graphics program was too expensive. At the time, the school had separate print shops for instruction and production. To help preserve them both, Hoekema huddled with the instructors and proposed a merger. "I said, if we want to keep this thing going, we really ought to join forces," Hoekema recalls. So they did. The in-plant was rearranged to let students work on live jobs—with real deadlines. The school saved money, and

Every Boy Scout knows the words "Be Prepared." This motto has also driven Robert Mettee to keep the BSA in-plant a step ahead. by Bob Neubauer If everything had gone as planned, Robert Mettee might be an auto mechanic right now. But fate—and his fellow students at the Baltimore vocational technical school he attended—sent him hiking down a different trail. "I was trying to get in the automotive class, and that filled up," he recalls. "My second alternative was printing." So he signed up—and quickly discovered he had a knack for it. "I graduated at the top of my printing class," Mettee

No in-plant manager has a better rapport with his staff than Director Rich Finner. The six full-time employees running Riverside Community College's Production Printing department are engaged in steering the shop every step of the way. And they've got a reason to be interested—not only do they mentor part-time student employees, they have a hand in how the shop's money gets spent. Here's how it works: Twenty-five percent of the revenue coming into the southern California shop is a result of unsolicited insourcing. "We don't drum up that business. They come to us," explains Finner. The money is deposited in what

It's safe to start calling Terry Fulcomer a financial guru. With six employees and a base budget of $750,000, the Prince William County graphic arts and print shop supervisor just scored a Heidelberg NexPress 2100, along with a Heidelberg Digimaster 9110. The key to his wisdom? Insourcing. Roping in 15 to 20 percent of the in-plant's income, insourcing work from other counties and municipalities is essential to this very successful shop. But it wasn't always such a booming in-plant. Fulcomer says when he first started at the shop, most of the equipment was archaic and the quality of work was very poor. "I've

When you work for Sunkist, it's pretty important to be able to print the color orange. That was one of the first things Tim Criswell realized five years ago after he was hired to run the in-plant at Sunkist Growers, in Sherman Oaks, Calif. At the time, the small shop was printing only forms and stationery. Everything that featured Sunkist's five-color logo had to be printed outside. This irked Criswell. He wanted to print that logo. "That, to me, was easy growth," he says. So he traded an unneeded collator for a used one-color Heidelberg KORD and went to work. Customers had

It's not often a school district print shop lands the printing for an entire city. But Carson Bartels, coordinator of central print services for Waterloo Community School District, saw an opportunity to grab an extra 17 percent of additional revenue for his in-plant, and he took it. Nine years ago, Waterloo, Iowa's city print shop had just said good-bye to its veteran manager as she left for retirement. The city was considering outsourcing the abandoned in-plant's work, but Bartels stepped up, insisting that his four-employee shop could pick up where the old manager left off. Bartels proved his in-plant could save the city money,

Trinity Church has played a part in much of New York's history. On September 11, 2001, it participated again. The in-plant, as usual, was there to help.

"In college you learn management skills from a book. In the Navy you get hands-on experience dealing with many different types of people in very stressful situations," says Jimmy Robinson, printing department director at the University of West Alabama. Drawing from the leadership skills he learned as print shop supervisor aboard the USS Kitty Hawk (and the strategies he read in college), Robinson has spent 19 years building this small southern in-plant into a seasoned survivor responsible for 95 percent of all the work printed by the university. Technology, quality and efficiency, he says are the focus areas that will keep an in-plant alive.

When you're the only guy in the print shop, everything's your fault. So if the in-plant isn't pulling it's weight, it's your job on the line. "Over the years, watching so many shops go out of business, I've looked for different avenues to take [to ensure the shop's survival]," says Larry Clements, director of printing at Redlands Community College and the shop's only full-timer. The solo operation is especially tough because the El Reno, Okla., school won't let Clements charge more for printing than the cost of the materials. With a profit margin thinned out to a big fat zero, Clements did what anyone