Vegas-based Creel Printing Commits to Digital Printing, Goes Beyond Print

By Erik Cagle

New-World Skills

Once upon a time, a printer would populate his production area with skilled craftsmen who resembled the Mr. Clean icon, with a twist of color on his cheek for a fitting touch. It is suffice to say that those days are long gone.

The skill sets required in today’s printing environment are more diverse than ever, notes Bill Wieners, vice president of digital solutions for Creel Printing. “Fifty years ago, even 20, it (the press crew) was made up of mechanical craftsmen,” he says. “If you look at the employee base on the digital side of our business—about 54 employees—we have more than 30 percent who have computer science or MIS degrees.”

It’s a very dramatic change in the business model, he notes, with many talented employees leaving the dotcom sector to enter printing. That has energized Creel’s client base.

“When we walk into a meeting and say, `OK, you want to talk about APIs, data transfer, or security standards, we can bring people to the table that most print companies cannot bring in to talk about those things,’” Wieners maintains. “That’s the goal—to become the true solutions partner.”

Las Vegas may be the gambling capital of the world, but Allan Creel Jr. wasn't about to wager the future of his business on the premise that a time-tested manufacturing process such as lithography was printing's raison d'être. Given that his company happens to be a phenomenal sheetfed offset and heatset/coldset web offset printer, sticking exclusively to what the company does well would've been the easy call.

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Creel Printing: Printing’s Future Is Now