Sappi Fine Paper North America

BOSTON—05/20/08—Sappi Fine Paper North America today announced the recipients of its 2008 North American Printers of the Year gold award winners. Culled from a field of almost 2,000 entries, the eight gold winners were selected from 48 silver and judges’ winners. The eight gold winners will now compete for the distinguished Sappi International Printers of the Year title to be held in Cape Town, South Africa in October 2008. The Sappi Printers of the Year awards competition recognizes print excellence and innovation for work produced on Sappi papers. Printers may submit entries for any of the eight categories: Annual Reports, Books,

Hall of Famer Touts Large-Format Presses NORTH BERGEN, NJ—Edison Litho & Printing embarked on its “The Future of Your Business is with Edison Litho” theme at the recent GlobalShop show to promote the large-format printing capabilities of its two six-color, 81˝ KBA Rapida 205 sheetfed presses. Edison also showed visitors examples of plastic, canvas, lenticular and styrene substrates that can be printed on the Rapida 205 presses. While at the booth, visitors got the chance to meet Dan Hampton, a retired Hall of Fame Chicago Bears football defensive tackle and current radio personality. Hampton signed calendars depicting former teammate William “The Refrigerator” Perry, Edison’s

Minnesota’s SFI Builds Habitat for Humanity Home COOK, MN—What started out in January as a well-managed tree farm owned by Minnesota Senator Tom Bakk will be a Habitat for Humanity home in Hibbing, MN, this spring. The home is being built as a unique effort by the Minnesota Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) Implementation Committee, which teamed up with the local Habitat for Humanity using SFI-certified materials from Minnesota forest products companies. Industry firms, which contributed materials and/or cash donations, included Boise, Forest Capital Partners, NewPage Corp., Sappi Fine Paper North America, UPM (Blandin Paper Mill) and Verso Paper (Sartell Mill). “SFI is proud to

TEGERNSEE, GERMANY—More than 50 worldwide journalists and 10 major manufacturers, all representing the graphic arts industry, teamed up to attend the PrintCity Alliance 2008 pre-Drupa Media Event held February 13-14. PrintCity members—MAN Roland, Océ Printing Systems, Sun Chemical, Sappi, UPM-Kymmene Corp., Procemex, MEGTEC Systems, M-real Corp., MacDermid Printing Solutions and Leonhard Kurz—announced the alliance’s “Connection of Competence” theme for Drupa, which will be held May 29 to June 11 in Düsseldorf, Germany. It was also announced that seven new Competence Centers will be featured in the PrintCity exhibition, located in Hall 6, where visitors can see the latest technologies explained and get comprehensive information

Holiday Fundraiser Deemed a Success RANDOM LAKE, WI—The Times Wellness Committee at Times Printing organized a poinsettia sale and used all of the proceeds to purchase holiday presents for families/children within the community that use the local food pantry as a resource. In addition, the company donated $500, and many employees made additional generous contributions. The fundraiser was such a success, that every child got an outfit, one toy (some children received two) and accessories, such as socksand shoes. Pictorial Hosts ‘Lunch & Learn’ Event CARLSTADT, NJ—Pictorial Offset partnered with Print Buyers Online.com and Pantone Inc. to host a free “Lunch

Group Visits KBA’s German Head­quarters RADEBEUL, GERMANY—KBA North America invited a select number of U.S. and Canadian printers, as well as industry journalists, to visit its headquarters and sheetfed press manufacturing facility here recently. The group was treated to a behind-the-scenes look at the factory assembly hall; the R&D facility; product demonstrations on the new-generation, 41˝ Rapida 105 five-over-five perfector press and the large-format, 56˝ Rapida 142 four-over-four perfector; and visits to several area printers that are utilizing KBA presses in sophisticated markets. Time was also spent sightseeing in Dresden and Leipzig. “Our open house in Germany provided printers with an in-depth education on

WASHINGTON, DC—Nearly 200 guests packed the National Building Museum in the nation’s capital for a black-tie gala as Sappi Fine Paper North America honored eight well known printing establishments with gold awards at the 2007 North American Printers of the Year reception held Saturday. The eight winners were: Williamson Printing in the annual reports category, with Jesse Williamson accepting. Canfield & Tack won the book category, with Dan Mahany accepting. Graphic Press, represented by Randy Ginsberg, took home top honors for brochures. DirectConnectGroup (HKM Marketing) topped the calendar category. Bob Lyons of RIS Paper accepted on behalf of DirectConnectGroup. Also winning were Kirkwood Printing, represented by

MAN Roland Hosts Printers for Press Premier OFFENBACH, GERMANY—The world premier of a “next generation” sheetfed printing platform isn’t an everyday occurrence, so MAN Roland extended its recent festivities to more than a week to allow for bringing in several groups of select printers, journalists and its own employees from around the globe. The stars of the show were HiPrint and DirectDrive versions of the new Roland 700 sheetfed printing platform. To make the most of the trip, the contingent from North America was additionally treated to tours of a local DirectDrive beta site, MAN Roland’s foundry and its manufacturing/assembly facilities for sheetfed presses.

Palamides Open House Delivers RENNIGEN, GERMANY—Think that an automated delivery system can’t significantly boost the productivity of your folder, stitcher or in-line finishing system? Think again. Several such solutions were shown recently at Palamides’ “Think Tank 2006” open house held here. MBO America showcased these new equipment offerings to a group of printers and trade binders from across the United States. The open house event was hosted by Stefano Palamides, who founded Palamides GmbH in 1997, and partner company MBO Binder GmbH & Co. MBO America serves as the exclusive distributor for Palamides in the U.S. market. Innovations shown included signature production from extra-large format (XXL) sheets

Open House Event Deemed a Success LINCOLNSHIRE, IL—Mitsubishi Lithographic Presses (MLP U.S.A.) hosted a technology open house recently at the company’s headquarters here. Billed as “Diamond Days,” the event focused on the theme “New Technology Opening New Worlds,” exemplified by the latest advancements in the Diamond series 40˝ sheetfed press lineup. Highlighted were the Diamond 3000LX press, the Diamond 3000TP Tandem Perfector and the new Mabeg RS 104 in-line reel sheeter. Wausau Paper announced several new hires in the marketing department for its Printing and Writing sector. Jennifer Cox has joined Wausau as product manager. Andrea Alstad takes over as brand manager for the