John "J.T." Sarantakos

I am a son of a printer. My father spent his entire working life in the industry. Born in 1933, John "J.T." Sarantakos was a depression era child who never forgot the difficult lessons he learned growing up. I guess you could classify him as street smart and street tough.

J.T. and John Sarantakos have made in-plants a family business. Back in the '60s, when John "J.T." Sarantakos was teaching high school printing in Harvey, Ill., he used to bring his young sons in to help out in the in-plant after school and in the summer. They would handle small tasks, like hand-collating jobs from piles laid out on a table—and Sarantakos worked out a sophisticated incentive plan. "When they got to the end of the table they picked up a nickel or a dime and stuck it in a bowl," he recalls. "They got an instant reward." For one of those boys, however,