Sandy Alexander

BY ERIK CAGLE It could be said that Doug Stone, co-founder of Odyssey Press, was a frugal man. He booked his own flights and almost always took the cheaper connecting route, no matter how circuitous. Stone was saving the company money, particularly when he was flying from his company's headquarters in Dover, NH, to Trend Offset Printing in Los Alamitos, CA, the home of his former employer. He was close to Anthony Lienau, one of Trend's founders, and still did consulting work for Lienau. So Stone would fly into Texas, where Trend has a plant, and visit there before continuing to California. Out

BY CAROLINE MILLER The price of paper continues to remain at an all-time low thanks in part to industry consolidation, a stagnant economy and weak demand. However, in the long term, market watchers are predicting that prices will begin to increase as the economy continues its slow climb out of the recession. The National Association of Printing Leadership's (NAPL's) March survey of printers found that just 9.8 percent of those responding to the survey reported that paper prices were rising. "That is just half of the 18.4 percent who reported that paper prices were rising last November," reveals NAPL Chief Economist Andrew Paparozzi. "In

By Mark Smith As the Web Offset Association turns 50, there is much about the industry it serves worthy of note. To a degree, the process has really only just come into its own in terms of color, quality, ease of operation and turnaround. Saying the industry has matured isn't necessarily an all-positive development, though, as any person who has celebrated the big 5-0 birthday probably will concede. Even while we toast web offset's current vitality, there are growing concerns about the competitive potential of digital alternatives producing or replacing print. The recent economic malaise has heightened feelings of uncertainty about the future.

By Caroline Miller In 1952, a handful of web offset printers got together in a hotel room in Chicago during the NAPL Expo. Those men were not only the pioneers that would help promote the then-fledgling web offset industry in the United States, they would also be the founding members of the Web Offset Association (WOA), the largest heatset offset printing organization in the world, says WOA Executive Director Tom Basore. "It really was the early days of heatset web printing in this country," notes Basore, who himself remembers—during his days working in the heatset web offset department at McCall's Printing in Dayton, OH—being

American Spirit Graphics, Minneapolis, has promoted several key managers. Darren Carlson has been promoted to CEO. Myron Angel has been promoted to president and COO. Lauren Drevlow is now executive vice president. Jason Carlson has assumed the position of corporate vice president. The Segerdahl Corp., Chicago, has appointed John Kampa to its sales and account management staff, and Roy Perfetti has been named to the company's sales staff. Kampa has an extensive, 17-year background in the web printing industry. For the past seven years, he worked as a national account executive at Lehigh Direct. Perfetti has 20 years of experience in the printing industry. His

BY ERIK CAGLE Chris Scarano took a quick drag from his cigarette, cased the warehouse and shook his head with just a hint of disgust. It was unusually quiet for a Tuesday morning at American Bindery Depot in Edison, NJ, not at all indicative of the activity that buzzes through the plant on a daily basis. Scarano wanted to show his crew in action at full throttle to a group of visitors, but a large order had yet to arrive, so the pace was more subdued. Still, Scarano didn't like the timing. "It's hardly ever like this," Scarano confides, bursting out a

BY CAROLINE MILLER The decision to implement a color management system was a no-brainer for Multi-Visual Products (MVP) owner Craig Graves. The Murrieta, CA-based company, which prints high-quality trading cards for youth sports leagues around the nation—as well as a line of magazine covers, calendars, enhanced team prints, magnets, stickers and mouse pads—had a color problem. When the company began eight years ago, MVP had a code blue calibration process, including a scanner and an output device. The company had to tweak the output devices as best it could, but there were many colors that didn't match the original. "Our reject rates were very high,"

Okay, I want all of you in the back to settle down. Don't make me call security on you. I can't be waiting up here while you finish those beers and hoagies. I've got some serious business to cover in this column and we've got to get started. Here's the agenda. First, I'm going to talk about the importance of customers, which some of you dolts still don't seem to get. Next, I'm going to talk about good negotiating skills, which some of you—especially those in the back row—appear to think is synonymous with fist fights and arguments. Finally, I'm going to report on

I've done a few controversial things lately and some hotsy totsy journalists decided to interview, make that "grill," me the way they attack famous people on TV. Your Mañana Man, that's me, fears nothing so I let these so-called "jourkalists" set up a conference call for the "interview."

BY CAROLINE MILLER It's a good news/bad news situation. The good news: Printing paper prices are very favorable and popular grades are readily available. The bad news: When prices are low and paper is readily available it generally means that the demand for printing is soft, as well. And that is exactly what the trend in the paper market has been for the past year. In late October and early November, just 2.5 percent of those who responded to the National Association for Printing Leadership's (NAPL's) national monthly paper survey indicated that paper prices were rising in that period. "It's the lowest we've ever seen that