Ken Bittner Named PIASC Executive of the Year

In late 1986, Ken was recruited by American Standard Corporation to fill the position of President at its Frye & Smith printing facility in Costa Mesa, California, a ninety year old high-end commercial sheetfed and heatset web company. He held this position for ten years, until accepting the position of V.P. and General Manager with World Color's George Rice Division in Los Angeles. This position along with a short-term with the Wace-USA prepress network allowed him to gain more experience in high-end color printing and electronic prepress before moving back to the San Francisco area as President of American Lithographers (Jefferson-Smurfit Corporation.) with production facilities in both Hayward and Sacramento. With the sale of these two facilities to Consolidated Graphics some 5 years later, Ken was asked to do "turn-around" work for Jefferson- Smurfit’s Lee-Fung Asco Group at two of its four facilities in The People's Republic of China, where he lived and worked for the next 18 months while acting as Managing Director of two separate facilities.