Shining Stars
Many leaders and executives at today's print companies started their careers in the industry decades ago. They know the history of the industry and provide experience that helps businesses stay successful and even thrive during some of the worst economic times.
But, then there are the others. The group that grew up watching MTV, leaving voicemails and having Prozac as an option when they needed a little help coping (all inventions during the past 40 years). The 40 and under crowd may lack candles on their birthday cakes, but make up for it with fresh ideas and a deep understanding of new technology. And, before long, these rising stars will represent the future of this industry. Nevertheless, it's best to let them speak for themselves. Check out the biographies, opinions and thoughts of some of the print industry's young, up-and-coming professionals.
Name: Sam Vignjevic
Age: 37
Company: growll.com
Title: eCommerce Director
Education: Youngstown State University
Explain how you got started in the print industry: I started out my career bouncing around ad agencies in traffic then print production. After one agency laid me off, they called me back and asked if I would manage some print projects for them. That started a five-year run of managing and reselling over a million dollars worth of print a year from home. Today, I use that experience to service growll.com's print reseller customer base.
Your biggest influence: My belief that there is always a better way to do something.
Where do you see yourself in the future: Continuing to grow growll.com and fighting to find new ways to get print pricing down for our members.
The biggest challenge associated with your age: Trying to keep up with the constant changes in this industry and maintain somewhat of a personal life. There are so many changes and challenges in the print industry right now and specifically, how to market print.
The biggest advantage associated with your age: I'm old enough to recognize how much I don't know about printing and young enough to have plenty of time to learn a good bit of it.
Name: Jason Lambert
Age: 30
Company: USADocufinish
Title: Regional Sales Manager
Education: Pittsburg State University
Explain how you got started in the print industry: I started out at PrintXcel working in its composition department while going to college. Once I graduated, I realized that I had an interest in sales and marketing and got an opportunity to move into inside sales at PrintXcel.
Your biggest influence: The people I work with are definitely my biggest influences.
Where do you see yourself in the future: Older, smarter and with more gray hair. I see myself continuing to work hard to help USADocufinish grow and prosper.
The biggest challenge associated with your age: I am often younger than the clients and people I work with on a daily basis. I always work very hard to show that I am knowledgeable and helpful. I look at this more as an opportunity.
The biggest advantage associated with your age: At my age, I have many years of success to look forward to in the print industry.
Name: Mardra Sikora
Age: 39
Company: Wright Printing/Folder Express
Title: President
Education: University of Nebraska Kearney
Explain how you got started in the print industry: If you want the real beginning, I started in the print industry by sleeping on the shop floor, making tablets from scrap stock and giving them to my friends, playing hide and seek in the pressroom, selling folders at a stand created from cardboard boxes outside my house (like a lemonade stand—but for folders), "stuffing" folders for mailings and scrapping folder edges from press sheets with a hammer and pliers. [Then] I left for college. During and after college, I worked in early childhood education and restaurant management. Food service prepared me for the long hours printing requires and childcare prepared me for, well, people. At 24, I accepted the opportunity to work in the customer service department at Wright Printing. What I loved then is what I love now—learning something new every day, building relationships with people all over the country and a pace that is relentless.
Your biggest influence: No surprise that as the fourth generation in a printing family, my father Mark Wright has been and continues to be my biggest influence. His vision has taken this company from a local to national presence; his courage has made allies of strangers and made the impossible to possible; and his unwavering dedication to our employees and the community is a pervasive attitude I wholly admire.
Where do you see yourself in the future: We are pushing ourselves to outpace the competition, particularly on the fronts of speed and product options. Multi-sensory finishes and inks will be an integral part of print marketing, combining the advantages of technology with print mediums, driving down price constraints and staying in front of environmental initiatives are what we see as the top areas in which print is evolving. My future is intertwined to the discovery of how to incorporate these issues into our business plan, market our vision and enjoy the ride.
The biggest challenge associated with your age: I've only got 39 years of living accomplished. Our industry has a consistent flow of wisdom colliding with new information. I feel I am always racing to acquire knowledge that only can come from experience.
The biggest advantage associated with your age: My team is determined to strengthen from within and grow our business. The advantage associated with my age is the ability to communicate the changes, strengths and challenges to multi generations, production levels and outside partners. I have enough years and experience to be taken seriously while remaining receptive to new ideas.
Name: Darren Solomon
Age: 30
Company: Prodigital Printing
Title: Vice President of Operations
Education: University of Miami
Explain how you got started in the print industry: When I was 8 years old my dad jokingly said to me: "Son, in order to be successful you need to get up early, work hard and do your very best," so the next day I woke up at 5:30 in the morning to wait for him to go to work. Now 22 years later, after graduating from the University of Miami, I am waking up at that same daunting hour to go to the office. After working summers in the warehouse, my first full-time job after college was in the laser imaging and mailing department. Soon after, I worked my way up the ranks to production manager. I may have innocently known then that I wanted to be in the industry, but after doing so for eight years I realize how exciting and rewarding printing can be.
Your biggest influence: I find myself inspired on a daily basis by both my counterparts in management and my staff. Their collective commitment to making sure each distributor is truly better off for having chosen to do business with us never ceases to amaze me. I actually have members of my staff who I almost have to push out the door at the end of the day. Knowing that they are working so hard for me makes me want to work even harder for them.
Where do you see yourself in the future: Even though I am currently engaged primarily in operational activities, I feel that there is a strong business development element that I am responsible for—whether it be interrupting a live job to print spec samples of a potential dimensional print job, or simply making sure we keep our commitments; going the extra mile is what keeps customers coming back and grows businesses. We are a family business, and I think my wide-ranging experience in the company, and my desire to continuously improve, will make me the obvious choice to lead the company into the next generation.
The biggest challenge associated with your age: Considering that I have a baby face, my biggest challenge is being in a position of authority and looking so young. I can remember meeting with a vendor about a year ago and them asking me when my boss was going to come in. I laughed and respectfully informed him that I know I look young, but that I am the vice president of operations.
The biggest advantage associated with your age: I believe that the biggest advantage to being 30 years old in this industry is my motivation. I am eager to make my company the most successful that it can be. I bring fresh ideas to the table and have no problem working a 16-hour day.
Name: Justin Zavadil
Age: 29
Company: American Solutions for Business
Title: Director of Vendor Relations
Education: University of Minnesota
Explain how you got started in the print industry: You could say that I grew up in the industry. My dad, Larry Zavadil, started American in 1981 when I was only a year old. The original office was in the attic of my childhood home, so I think my first experience in the print industry was running around and knocking papers off of the desks of the employees when I was three. I had many jobs within American throughout my youth—working in the mailroom, doing maintenance and helping out in the warehouse. After college, I became a sales associate for four years in Minneapolis, where I was able to gain even more knowledge about the industry before moving back to Glenwood to work at the home office to work with vendors and associates.
Where do you see yourself in the future: American has always been a large part of my life and will continue to be in the future. Being the director of vendor relations has taught me way more about this business than I could have ever imagined. Working directly with our suppliers on a daily basis has allowed me to have a better rapport with our sales associates because the best part of my job is using that supplier knowledge to arm our associates to go out and make money. I hope to work more closely with our sales people in the future. American is a "sales" company and everything we do at the home office is done to support our associates. We have the best associates in the industry and I plan to work with them for as long as I can.
The biggest challenge associated with your age: So many of the people in our industry have been working together for years and have built very strong relationships. Since I am relatively new in my position in vendor relations, I've had to create new relationships with our suppliers without any history. This has been challenging, but also very rewarding. I've become very good friends with many of our suppliers.
The biggest advantage associated with your age: Since I've grown up with the company, I've known many of our sales associates for a very long time. These relationships give me the ability to work with them on new product opportunities and new technology because I understand where they're coming from and what their core business is all about. I also can help them market themselves to their customers with the use of social media such as Facebook and Twitter because I use them in my daily life.
Name: Patrick Flynn
Age: 39
Company: Continental Datalabel
Title: General Manager – West Coast Manufacturing Plant
Education: Babson College
Explain how you got started in the print industry: My dad had a press in the garage in our first house, and I went to the NBFA shows (as they were then known) and worked the booth when I was just entering elementary school. I went to the office of our family business alot and even into the shop on weekends when the presses weren't running. After college, it was just natural for me to join the business.
Your biggest influence: My dad. He pushes me to be the best I can be. ... He taught me to take things seriously and was the first person to ever fire me from a job (I wouldn't go in to do inventory as a teenager). My dad also taught me about ethics and doing the right thing.
Where do you see yourself in the future: ... It is no secret that there are some big challenges facing not only the independent distributor-based business model that we support, but the print and label industries as a whole; from the economic bubbles to the graying of the boundaries of who is and who isn't an independent distributor. Managing to support the channel while keeping Continental Datalabel a leader in the market will be a significant endeavor.
The biggest challenge associated with your age: Being young and managing those who were, in some cases, significantly older and more experienced. That was more than 12 years ago, but the perception that I didn't know what I was doing because I was 27 (or even now at 39) and lacked experience was frustrating.
The biggest advantage associated with your age: Lack of experience can also be an advantage. The ability to look at problems from a fresh perspective has really helped us change some of those long-standing "traditions" that sometimes are nothing more than fear of the unexpected. Challenging the status quo is something that youth is known for, and in our industry and at Continental Datalabel, that is no different.
Name: Rochelle Heinl
Age: 29
Company: Repacorp
Title: Vice President
Education: Miami University, Ohio
Explain how you got started in the print industry: My father has been in the label printing industry most of his career and as a kid growing up many dinners included talk about the label industry and Repacorp's policy. After graduating from [college] I moved to New York to try my hand in investment (Who doesn't like working with money?). However, labels were just in my blood and that brought me back to Repacorp.
Your biggest influence: My parents are by far my biggest influence. They have done a great job working as a team, with my mom at home helping us kids grow and flourish, and my dad manning Repacorp and building it to the company it is today. ... They taught me that as long as I am honest, and give 100 percent, I have a great chance to succeed.
Where do you see yourself in the future: I would love to be the next President of the United States, but if you know me, you also know that I am not the best at holding my tongue and being politically correct—so I will settle for working at Repacorp and seeing how much we can expand our capabilities. Tony Heinl, executive vice president, is my uncle and has been with the company for 20 years. It will be fun working with Tony to see where we can take Repacorp in the future.
The biggest challenge associated with your age: ... The initial meeting with an older client is the hardest. Due to my age, I have to prove myself to earn their respect. However, I don't have any trouble once they find out I am knowledgeable and competent—it's just that initial half hour I feel judged due to my age, and perhaps my gender.
The biggest advantage associated with your age: The ability to see challenges with fresh eyes. ... I believe it is easier to see ways to cut costs by streamlining processes and questioning if there is a better way. My generation grew up with new technology. Therefore, I am able to adjust to technology changes easier. I also look to technology for answers. Being deeply involved in the new digital printing technology, laser die-cutting and RFID technology, I thrive on new challenges and capabilities we can now offer our distributors.