Larry Williams

Competition among insurance companies is fueling marketing efforts, forcing in-plants to turn out more four-color work than ever. Insurance is a huge market. Its providers make up a major portion of Fortune magazine's annual Fortune 500 listing, with giants like State Farm and Prudential ranking in the top 20. Behemoths like these know how important quality marketing materials are to their businesses, and many of them turn to their in-plants to get them. Because of the competition among insurance firms, these materials must be eye-catching and colorful, a fact that is bringing more color printing work into these in-plants. "Color will sell things

This month IPG talks to Larry Williams, at Fireman's Fund, who entered the printing industry by chance and has loved it ever since. Fresh out of Sonoma State University, armed with degrees in geography and business management, Larry Williams had no idea what he was getting himself into when he walked into a copy shop back in 1979. "I went into a print shop to get my resume printed," Williams recalls. "They had a typesetting machine but they didn't have a typesetter, and I said, 'well, I need a job. If you give me the manual I can learn how to run that machine.'