A Passion for Postal Perfection

Glenn Petkovsek's designs get the stamp of approval from the USPS

by Janet R. Gross

Perfectionism has its pitfalls. Just ask Glenn Petkovsek. The pursuit of perfect postal forms has consumed his life since he started United Systems of Arkansas (USA) 11 years ago in his Little Rock dining room.

However, the long and often difficult road to perfection has also led Petkovsek to leadership status and accolades, including five straight years of top honors in BFL&S' design contest, including three platinum awards. In recognition of this excellence, Petkovsek has been named the 2000 Designer of the Year.

Inventor by Necessity

Although he jokes that his young daughter says he cuts and pastes just like she does, only with a computer, his design skills actually hark back to his roots in printing and graphic arts, beginning in 1964. He was a salesman for A.B.Dick for five years and a commercial printer for nearly 10 years, then ran his own printing business in Mississippi. Petkovsek never took forms design classes but notices poor design elements others overlook.

Petkovsek is of the old school of design and learned typography, but laments, "Now, no one knows what kerning and leading is." His attention to such details led to distaste with the standard forms the U.S. Postal Service uses for certified mail.

"I'm a salesman at heart, but I turned inventor out of necessity," he noted. When he had an order for 50,000 pieces to be sent certified mail, he was aghast at the multiple forms' inefficiency and determined to provide an automated means to handle such orders.

"The post office's forms are not designed well because those who design them don't use them. I saw a need and, being a perfectionist, wanted a better way," Petkovsek said. He had laser equipment, new at the time, and wanted to design a laser certified mail form. As a courtesy, he approached a competitor using dot matrix printers for that application and was told that there was no future in laser products.