SUPPLIER news
Sun Chemical Plant Undergoes $7.2M Expansion
ST. CHARLES, IL—Sun Chemical is working on a expansion of its manufacturing facility and laboratories here. The $7.2 million project will add nearly 32,000 square feet, bringing the plant to 90,000 square feet. The building will include ink manufacturing operations, expanded offices, a warehouse and a new laboratory.
When it is completed in April 2004, the facility will house 141 employees. At this plant, the company also plans to combine the operations of its Chicago-area Clearing plant, as well as Kohl and Madden's facility in Elk Grove Village, IL.
Colter & Peterson has reached an agreement with Germany-based Post Press Co. (PPC Group) to distribute its complete range of postpress equipment in North America. This equipment includes the Wohlenberg line of paper cutters, perfect binders, gatherers and three-knife trimmers, as well as Baumann paper handling equipment.
Creo Inc. has announced that its entire design and manufacturing operations are now certified to ISO 9001:2000 standards for quality management and to ISO 14001:1996 standards for environmental management. Achieving the certification is part of the company's commitment to ongoing improvement in quality management and environmental standards. In other news, Creo Americas has promoted Patrick Morrissey to vice president of sales. Morrissey is now responsible for leading the entire sales organization of Creo Americas, covering North America and Latin America.
MACtac named four new district managers for its Graphic and Distributor division. Carol Schulenberg handles the states of North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama and Mississippi. Anne Nabholz covers the states of Kansas, Missouri, Colorado, Texas, Arkansas, Oklahoma and New Mexico. Rick Villa is responsible for Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska and Northern Illinois. And Frank Ergle now handles the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states.
MAN Roland is bolstering its Tower Add-On Program with new expertise and services, provided by recently hired former executives who have extensive experience in equipping and upgrading newspaper pressrooms. The company appointed Mark Juratich as manager, Newspaper Add-On Business, and Mark Sievers, commercial project manager. Both are veterans of Goss Graphic Systems.
Polly USA has been renamed Grafitec America, which aligns the name with its parent, Grafitec Ltd. Grafitec is a Czech Republic-based manufacturer of sheetfed presses. Ernest Bardocz, a former Heidelberg executive, has been appointed president to lead the North American operations.
PRIMAC Systems and DiMS! organizing print have joined other printing industry companies as partners in Creo's Networked Graphic Production. The Networked Graphic Production partners are committed to working with JDF and other open file standards to deliver fully integrated, 'cross-vendor' solutions that are designed to help printers cut costs, increase revenues, decrease cycle times and reach more customers.
Jon Fennell has been hired as the new vice president of operations at Radius Solutions. He has more than 12 years of industry software and implementation experience.
Thomas Roberts, a 20-year veteran of the company and a corporate officer since 1987, has been elected president of Sabin Robbins Paper.
Fuji Hunt Photographic Chemicals has formed a strategic partnership with Cork Industries to manufacture aqueous coatings for the sheetfed litho market.
Kolbus America is planning to relocate its corporate headquarters from New Jersey to a Midwestern state. Centrally located states such as Illinois, Indiana, Ohio and Kentucky are being considered. Officials of the company stated that the relocation will affect less than one-half of its total work force. The majority of those currently employed at the New Jersey location will be given the opportunity to relocate to the new facility. The relocation is expected to be completed before the end of the third quarter of 2004.
Esko-Graphics has appointed Mark Vanover as director of marketing, North America. His career in the graphic arts spans more than 25 years, including product and marketing management roles at Scitex America and Creo Americas.
Independent graphic arts dealer #1 Network will now sell Delta 830 CTP plates manufactured by Printing Developments Inc. (PDI).
Lastra America has named Joe Downer as product manager. He has been a product manager for Xerox Corp., Aperture Technologies and TowerCom. Also, Robert Griffin has assumed the position of technical support specialist and technical sales representative.
Hostmann-Steinberg announced that graphic arts supplier Pitman Co. has been named national distributor of its full line of inks.
RDP Marathon has hired George Herrick as Northeast region sales manager. Located in Connecticut, Herrick now promotes RDP's fixed and variable-size perfecting and non-perfecting web presses.
Exanet has formed its Digital Media division, and named Melvin Ettinger division president. The new division will focus on marketing and selling the ExaStore storage system to the digital media industry.
Sentry Insurance, a provider of business insurance to the printing industry, has been identified as one of the nation's top 50 property/casualty insurance companies by Ward Financial Group. Sentry was named to Ward's 50 Benchmark Group of top performing property/casualty insurance firms for 2003.
