NAPL

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

SOME PUNDITS have called it “window dressing,” and others have termed it a last ditch effort to put a positive spin on the back end of what will become President Bush’s legacy. All politics aside, the Economic Stimulus Act of 2008 (H.R. 5140), which the president signed into law in late February, is intended to pump life into an economy that is bordering on—if not already wallowing in—a recession. Beginning this month, taxpayers will begin receiving between $300 and $600, depending on marital status, and $300 per child with limits based upon household income. Thus a working married couple with two children and a

MY PUBLISHER, Printing Impressions, has been trying to discipline me for nearly 25 years. I’ve dealt with at least a dozen different staff editors (mean-spirited goons) over that span. The most recent arrival carries the title of Managing Editor, but I’m forced to salute her as “Sarge.”

This hotshot Managing Editor sent me an e-mail recently, and the subject was “Schedule.” The e-mail listed monthly deadlines for the remainder of 2008. It also listed the topics for my columns for the remaining issues this year.

Can you imagine Sarge telling me, the Mañana Man, what to write and when I’m to turn it in? The

AN OLD line goes that if you put three economists in a room, show them the same data and ask them for their predictions, you’ll get three different answers. But that was not the case at the recent NPES 2008 Industry Summit in New York, which comprised the association’s annual Print Outlook conference followed by a quarterly PRIMIR market research group meeting. Former President’s Council of Economic Advisors senior economist Dr. Sung Won Sohn forecast the outlook for the U.S. economy in general, followed by industry-specific prognostications from the chief economists representing the NAPL and PIA/GATF, Andrew Paparozzi and Ronnie Davis, respectively. Sohn pulled

NEW YORK—April 30, 2008—Mimeo.com (http://www.mimeo.com), the innovator of online, on-demand digital printing for business documents and marketing materials, announced today the hiring of Holly Muscolino as Vice President, Product – Print Solutions, and Chuck Gehman as Vice President of Product Platforms, two newly created positions. Combined, the two print industry experts possess nearly 40 years of print-industry experience and expertise. In her new role, Muscolino will be responsible for the development of new Mimeo.com print product offerings. She will lead Mimeo.com’s efforts to determine what print products and services will be offered to customers and drive the delivery of these products. In

PARAMUS, N.J—April 3, 2008—NAPL, the not-for-profit management association for business excellence in the printing and graphic communications industry (www.napl.org), has named Benjamin Y. Cooper the recipient of its 2008 Technical Leadership Award. The 72nd annual award recognizes Cooper’s tireless advocacy on behalf of the U.S. printing industry as its chief lobbyist. He received the award at NAPL’s Top Management Conference in Orlando, Fla., on March 10, 2008. “As a dedicated champion and eloquent spokesman for the print media, Benjamin Cooper has made paradigm-shifting contributions to the advancement of the graphic communications industry, while serving as the impetus for historic change within

OUR BELOVED printing industry is forever wrestling with economic uncertainty, while simultaneously marching in the vanguard of one technological revolution after another. Small wonder, then, that users of so-called “conventional” offset technologies have grown particularly adept at the kind of strategic logrolling that is an essential survival skill in this “pushmi-pullyu” business environment. In 2008, negative economic variables like the housing glut, the mortgage credit crisis, rising oil prices and a looming recession, along with print-positive developments like election-year spending, will have their respective down and up pressures on the offset sector. With the 2008 edition of the annual Offset and Beyond conference slated

PARAMUS, NJ—March 25, 2008—NAPL, the not-for-profit management association for business excellence in the printing and graphic communications industry (www.napl.org), has just released SOI (State of the Industry): 2008 Strategic Perspective. The report serves as a strategic planning tool that defines the challenges and opportunities facing today’s printing industry executives and offers actionable guidance on charting a path for sustainable success and profitability. NAPL SOI: 2008 Strategic Perspective is the latest report in the State of the Industry Series, now widely regarded as the definitive analysis of current and future industry trends. “The economy, protecting profit margins and rising costs are the overriding concerns

To help solidify branding and enhance name recognition, the Goodway Group of Companies, headquartered in Philadelphia, announced that its Massachusetts plant has changed its name from Goodway Graphics to Goodway Group of Massachusetts. Their sister facility near Washington, DC, has changed to Goodway Group of Virginia. In other company news, both the Massachusetts and Virginia plants are now FSC certified. The Print Council announced that GLS Companies, Brooklyn Park, MN; The Hickory Printing Group, Hickory, NC; Jet Inc., Downers Grove, IL; and Lake County Press, Waukegan, IL, have joined the organization. As new members, the companies will work in concert with other member companies

PARAMUS, NJ—February 6, 2008—NAPL’s Top Management Conference (TMC) has moved back to the East Coast and will be held at the Ritz-Carlton, Grand Lakes, Fla., March 9-12, 2008. The event is designed to provide insightful leadership tips to industry executives in a warm, casual environment conducive to networking and reflecting on the year ahead. Great business leaders have always advocated the value of taking time to get away from the business in order to strategically plan for the business with a clear head, and TMC has been designed to help printing industry leaders do just that. “TMC has always been a great