SUPPLIER News

Kodak’s Graphic Communications Group has made a contribution of $85,000 to the New Orleans Area Habitat for Humanity (NOAHH). The contribution provides funding to build a house in an area that was devastated by Hurricane Katrina. Kodak employees and customers were invited to volunteer to help build the new home.

Wausau Paper has opened a new East Coast distribution center in Allentown, PA, enabling it to offer overnight and same day delivery service to a geographically broader group of customers across the region.

As a result of its acquisition of Stora Enso North America, NewPage Corp. has taken steps to restructure and streamline its coated No. 2 to No. 4 web paper product lines. Several products will be discontinued, including Focus Plus, NovaPress Advantage, PolarisPress and CapriPress. Lightweight and gravure capability will be added to the Escanaba and Dependoweb brands.

Printable Technologies and Canon U.S.A. have reached an agreement through which Canon will offer Web-to-print solutions from Printable. Canon will now market and sell Printable’s Web-to-print solution as a reseller in conjunction with its imagePRESS digital presses.

Shure-Glue Systems, the Valco Cincinnati hotmelt equipment company located in the United States, has now become a part of Melton. Melton S.L.U., based in Spain, was acquired by Valco Cincinnati in 2006. The merging of the two companies will streamline the two hotmelt brands.

The new president of Secap is Frank Dominici, who is now responsible for driving business development, strategic planning and product development efforts, while providing support and direction for Secap dealers. Dominici, a 25-year industry veteran, previously served as Western division sales vice president at Pitney Bowes.

The 2007 recipient of the NAPL Industry Award is Hewlett-Packard. Matt Bruns, North America business development, accepted the award on behalf of HP during the NAPL’s Top Management Conference held in Orlando, FL.

EskoArtwork has completed the acquisition of Gradual Software. The terms and conditions of the transaction have not been disclosed. It will operate as a dedicated business unit within the EskoArtwork group, under the Enfocus brand.

The new sales director for North America/Graphic Arts Solutions at EFI is Bill Bieger. He most recently served as director of business development at ONYX in North America.

Flint Group has invested $2 million into a new 52,500-square-foot ink facility in Atlanta. The new site serves packaging and commercial printers, and accommodates solvent, water and paste ink manufacturing.

Ted O’Connor has rejoined Mohawk Fine Papers as the company’s director of pricing process, a newly created position to support Mohawk’s ongoing process improvement efforts across the company.

Robert “Bob” McAleenan, the former Eastern sales manager at Vits America, died April 13. McAleenan rejoined the Vits sales team in 2003, and became an invaluable member, helping to get the sales team of the ground. He was passionate about the industry and everyone in it.

To support its Intelligent Mail initiatives, Pitney Bowes has acquired Trackmymail Inc., a specialist in mail tracking services. Pitney Bowes reportedly plans to retain and expand the Trackmymail brand.

Richard “Dick” Williams, 73, one of the original founders of Presstek Inc., and former chief technology officer until his retirement in January 2003, died March 30 after an extended illness. Considered a pioneer of DI printing, Williams held many other positions with the company including CEO and was chairman of Presstek’s board of directors from 1998 to 2004. He received the RIT Cary Award in 2003.

Terry Vandewarker is the new COO at Gandinnovations. With more than 20 years of experience, Vandewarker previously worked for companies such as Encad Inc. and Eastman Kodak.

Sakata Inx has reached an agreement with the ownership group of Czech Republic-based Megaink Digital a.s., taking a majority interest. The company will offer a broad spectrum of digital ink products and services for wide- and superwide-format printing as a member of INX Digital, the digital arm of INX International Ink.

GBC has announced coverage expansion of its GBC Full Circle Service. GBC technicians now not only repair GBC equipment, but also service more than 30 brands of finishing equipment including collators, corner rounders, folders, joggers, laminators, paper cutters, paper drills and punches. PI