What was your first job in the newspaper business?

Working in a print shop producing two weekly newspapers and job printing. I began working while attending elementary school and worked through high school.

What do you like most about your job?

Coaching and watching my employees develop. It’s very rewarding to hire, train and see employees move up through the ranks and work their way to the upper levels.

What do you like least?

Dealing with an employee who has no desire to work and do quality work. Fortunately, most employees have a strong desire to learn and produce a quality product.

What was your newspaper’s most recent purchase/installation? Why did you choose that product/company?

Although not the most recent, we completed our central production facility in 1999 and installed new press lines that are modern in every respect.

Our most recent purchase and installation was the Esko Graphics page pairing system.

We felt their product was superior to the others we researched. We’ve been well-pleased. During the last year and a half we have installed a web offset heatset press and [now] operate a complete commercial bindery to support our newspaper printing operation.

What is the biggest challenge your newspaper is facing in production? What are you doing to face this challenge?

Convincing our production team that we are doing things the right way. I don’t think the entire production team realizes just how good they are. We have been extremely successful because of employees. And we’re getting better each day.

What trend are you keeping your eye on? Why?

Packaging! Packaging! Packaging! We’re doing well in all other areas of production. To steal a phrase from a friend, “That’s where the money is.”

The greatest opportunity for improvement in our industry is in the packaging arena. We need to be able to automate and be able to depalletize our products with robotics and thus eliminate the need to handle materials several times before delivering them to the customer. Newspaper delivery is evolving into delivery of a packaged product to the customer’s door.

We also are staying on top of computer-to-press but at this time we don’t see a big enough cost savings. We are, however, looking closely at computer-to-press — and we believe it will be here soon.