Industry News

St. Louis-based Bernadette Print Group, formerly known as Bernadette Business Forms, was purchased by J Paul Behrens. Behrens, a local St. Louis businessman, is injecting the company with new energy. He has made investments into new equipment, such as automatic color control systems and register units to improve quality and make ready times, a turret rewind unit for jumbo rolls and an eight-color Mark Andy flexographic printer. In addition, Behrens has appointed Brian Curran as general manager, Barry Korman, former owner of Jet Envelope of St. Louis, as sales manager, and Rick Niehaus as marketing director. For more information, visit www.bbf.com.

Headquartered in Sewickley, Pa., The Label Printing Industries of America (LPIA) announced the 2006 Fall Management Conference will be held Nov. 1–4 at the rustic Enchantment Resort in scenic Sedona, Ariz. The event is designed to provide label converters and packaging printers with critical, practical information through numerous sessions and unparalleled industry networking. Special emphasis will be place on effective strategies and tactics, operational challenges, investment decisions and procedures. In addition, solutions will be offered in the area of proven leadership, financial management, sales, marketing, and the HR side of the business. A highlight of the conference will be the LPIA Hall of Fame Dinner. LPIA

Xerox, Rochester, N.Y., has extended its family of carbonless paper products to include a new stock that works with its flagship Xerox iGen3 digital press. The result is colorful, multi-part bank statements, invoices and claim forms at up to 110-pages-per-minute—faster than any other digital color system in the industry. Pairing Xerox premium digital carbonless paper with the iGen3 makes it possible to economically and efficiently add colorful logos and highlighted content to each sheet of a contract or receipt for improved accuracy and efficiency. In addition, companies can save time and money by printing forms on-demand, rather than using large inventories of offset, pre-printed

Headquartered in Indianapolis, International Business Solutions Alliance (IBSA), chose the beautiful downtown area for the site of its 2006 National Conference and Trade Show. More than half of the organizations 135 affiliates and 115 preferred vendors gathered Aug. 13-16 at the Hyatt Regency for networking opportunities and educational seminars, including sessions on selling digital printing programs, the latest RFID technology updates, health-care market sales strategies and applications for hot new promotional products. Highlights of the event included a supplier trade show, and presentations by printing industry forecaster Dr. Joe Webb and business speaker Dirk Beveridge. During the IBSA awards banquet, supplier awards were presented

You may have noticed BFL&S has ventured into the wide and wonderful world of streaming Internet video. Our staff is excited about these new avenues and would like you to participate. Sparked by the popularity of video sharing Web sites, such as YouTube, we are offering you a chance to share your videos with the entire BFL&S readership community. That clip you shot of Gutenberg’s original press, that crazy machine at the label convention in Germany or of the oldest known paper on earth from your trip to Egypt are just the kinds of videos we are looking for. Please do not submit corporate

WorkflowOne, Dayton, Ohio, has signed a two-year contract with Boston-based CommonWealth Purchasing Group to become the nationwide print source for its 175 health-care providers and affiliates. The contract is estimated to be worth more than $2 million, and designates WorkflowOne as the preferred supplier for documents, forms and labels. CommonWealth members also will have access to WorkflowOne’s broad portfolio of marketing services and promotional products. In particular, the company wanted to provide its members with the technology needed to streamline their ordering process for print-related items. “In WorkflowOne, we found a highly capable partner that understands the unique needs of the health-care profession

Tullahoma, Tennessee-based Wisco presents its 2006 line of holiday teller helpers, and a special program for early ordering. The early bird program allows buyers to take an extra 5 percent discount when orders for holiday products are placed by Oct. 1. Delivery can be scheduled at the users’ request as long as all products ship by Dec. 1. The program is a win/win situation for both distributors and end-users, as it encourages early ordering and results in real savings. Distributors can receive up to 25 sales kits featuring illustrations of each of the 2006 holiday products, a generic order form and open spacing for

DMIA’s annual Print Solutions conference and exposition will be held Oct. 3-5 at the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont, Ill. The conference will provide three days of educational sessions, including a presentation by this year’s keynote speaker, Newt Gingrich, former Speaker of the House and co-author of “Contract with America.” Join Gingrich as he analyzes the current political climate in Washington, DC, and educates attendees on effective leadership. This year’s conference will feature equipment demonstrations, offering distributors better insight into how various applications are produced. In addition, exchange centers will be located on the show floor with more than 34 hours of

Headquartered in Chesterfield, Mo., it was Mark Andy’s involvement with RFID, and its live demonstration at a Labelexpo, that first attracted Northern Ireland-based Nuprint Technologies to the American press manufacturer. Since Mark Andy was a good fit with Nuprint Technologies’s view of label development, and indicated a level of commitment to research and development that was not to be found elsewhere, according to Managing Director, Gavin Killeen. Keen to position the company ahead of the ‘me too’ brigade, Killeen set about developing intellectual RFID property that will enable him to offer customers the benefits of RFID-embedded labels in the near future. The research work

Eden Prairie, Minnesota-based Four51 has launched the newest upgrade to its application, including several important new features to help Four51 customers do business more quickly and efficiently. Primary application features of the recent upgrade include integrated shipping, improved direct mail, the ability to store favorite orders and clone products, improved quick-print usability and increased credit card functionality. The most major enhancement, credit card functionality, will expand customers’ ability to safely use many different payment options, such as PayPal and WorldPay, in addition to making credit card rules more manageable. Administrative users can now create and store credit cards without displaying the actual credit