SUPPLIER news
Small-Format Sheetfed Presses Shown At 'Invitation to Innovation' Open House
DALLAS—KBA North America recently hosted an "Invitation to Innovation" open house, held in conjunction with the Printing and Imaging Association of MidAmerica. More than 85 Texas-area printers and suppliers gathered in KBA's new 6,000-square-foot customer center.
Guests viewed a live demonstration of KBA's 14x20˝ Genius 52UV press. They also had the opportunity to see a 23x29˝ Rapida 75 six-up sheetfed press running at maximum speed while producing a four-color job, which was then diecut in-line using a converted fifth printing unit based on H.S. Boyd technology.
Visitors at the open house were also shown a wide range of applications—from printing high-quality offset jobs, to printing on specialty substrates such as static cling and an environmentally-friendly plastic from MicroGreen.
Chris Raney, who most recently served as vice president of sales for the folding carton business at Bobst Group, is the new vice president of postpress packaging at Heidelberg USA. Dan Maurer, vice president of postpress product management, is now totally responsible for all commercial postpress.
Peter Johnson has joined the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) as managing director of the Office of Sustainability. Johnson will combine his forestry, auditing and sustainability consulting experience to help SFI build awareness of its contributions to responsible forestry amongst foundations, consumer-facing brands, customers and the financial services sector.
Dave Kennedy has joined Recognition Systems (RSI) as sales manager, pressroom products, to expand RSI's existing Dotworks brand of prepress and inkjet offerings into the pressroom, including inks, chemicals, ECS brand aqueous and UV coatings, and expanded blanket offerings. Kennedy most recently worked for Heidelberg USA and, before that, was vice president and general manager at DYC Blankets.
Unisource Worldwide has awarded a Matching Challenge Grant to the The Print Council—resulting in $100,000 of new financial support from the industry, as well as 15 new supporters to the council ranks. The additional support will fund new initiatives, as well as support the ongoing programs of The Print Council.
Konica Minolta Business Solutions U.S.A. has acquired All Covered, a national provider of managed IT services to the small- and medium-size business market. All Covered provides server management, remote monitoring, cloud computing, onsite network support and consulting services through 22 offices in the United States.
The sales team at DirectSmile has been reorganized. They include: Thomas Pennetta, systems engineer; Dan Lindenbaum, regional sales manager; and Jerry Modugno, national sales manager. Tobias Flores, sales director, will also support DirectSmile's U.S. business out of its Berlin headquarters.
Luther Erlund has been selected as Prism's new North American sales manager. He is now responsible for sales of the Prism WIN MIS solution and Prism QTMS, an automated shop floor data capture solution.
Two new territory sales managers have joined the sales team at GPA, Specialty Substrate Solutions. Brian Patrick is now responsible for sales in the Eastern half of the United States, and Shaun Patrick now covers the Western half.
RBP Chemical Technology has acquired substantially all of the assets of New England Newspaper Supply Co. (NENSCO) of Millbury, MA. RBP has retained office and warehouse space in the Worcester, MA, area and NENSCO's key sales and support employees, as well as its executives, Brad and Jon Beaton.
Papierfabrik Scheufelen GmbH (Scheufelen), a manufacturer of coated wood-free premium papers based in Lenningen, Germany, and owned by the Finnish paper group Powerflute OYJ, has announced several management changes. Kim Jokipii has returned as CEO of the company. He succeeds Michael Spallart who now assists Powerflute with development projects elsewhere in the group. Hariolf Koeder has been tapped as the company's deputy CEO.
Joe Demharter, vice president of sales for Presstek Inc., has joined the board of directors at Hybrid Integration, a software developer and MIS provider.
SAKATA INX, parent company of INX International Ink, has purchased an additional interest (three million shares) of Toyo Ink stock, a company with which it has capital and business ties.
At France-based Nipson SAS, majority shareholder Loïc Dufeil, chairman of the company ADT, has acquired 100 percent of Nipson SAS and is seeking to recapitalize the digital printing equipment manufacturer. Ghislain Ségard is now chairman of Nipson SAS. PI
