 Member Event Draws Crowd
WSPA's member event last week in Tempe drew a great crowd of members and potential members who came to hear PIA Chairman Jeff Ekstein and PIA CEO
Michael Makin outline the benefits of membership in WSPA and Printing Industries of America. In their presentation Jeff and Michael also shared what profit leaders in the industry are doing to stay ahead of the competition. Anyone wishing to receive a PDF version of the Powerpoint presentation, please send an email to mmakin@wsprint.org. Special thanks to event sponsors
Prudential Overall Supply and Ricoh.
WSPA is finalizing the details for a similar event which will be held in Denver on Thursday, October 23, 2014. Stay tuned for details.
While in Phoenix, National Chairman Ekstein also toured a number of member plants including Prisma and Cereus Graphics. Pictured above are Jeff Ekstein, Prisma CEO Bob Anderson and MIchael Makin. Pictured below are Cereus Graphics CEO Tom Ginter and Jeff Ekstein.
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 Colorado Employer New Hire Tip
All employers in the U.S. must complete Form I-9 within three days of hiring employees (including weekends if you're operating). This is required to verify the employee's identity and employment eligibility. While the federal government says employers may photocopy and retain the documents an employee presents, only Colorado requires that employers photocopy and retain them for employees hired on or after January 1, 2007. It is also important to document the hire. If after 20 days of hire you have not obtained copies of the documents, do not go back and request them again. For more information and guidance on the requirements see
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 Start Saving Your Best Print Pieces!
Now is the time to start putting away samples of your best print pieces to submit in the 2015 Print Excellence Awards Competition. The Calls For Entries will soon be sent so get ready!
This year the competition will be region-wide with national judges evaluating the best print pieces from Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Southern Wyoming. Award ceremonies will be held in April 2015 in both Phoenix and Denver. Winners of the WSPA Print Excellence Awards will also receive free entries into the Premier Print Awards Competition of Printing Industries of America, the largest graphics awards competition in the world.
Special thanks go out to Cathy Skoglund and her amazing team at ASU for executing this year's program from start to finish!
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 Keep Millennials Motivated: 3 Tips We all know that not all employees respond to the same motivation. This is certainly the case with Millennials. Here are three tips to keep younger workers motivated and productive. - Help your young workers understand the reasoning and sense behind your decisions. They will put more heart into their projects when they understand why a job needs to be done, why it must be done in a certain way, and how it relates to what else is happening in the your company.
- Let go of old practices when they lose their value and importance. Few things turn off young workers faster than "that's the way we've always done it." Young workers will not wait around long if they sense you are opposed to change. Leave the door open for young workers to bring their energy and good ideas to the table and help your whole team do a better job.
- Give generous praise when it is deserved. This will not only improve motivation to do specific tasks but build young workers' confidence in general. When you must criticize, be considerate; always explain how employees can improve their work, and be supportive of their efforts to do so.
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 Measuring Neutral Gray From One Density Reading
As printers are aware, attaining neutral gray is considered the bulls-eye of print. This is true in both digital and lithographic arenas. The measurement device required is a spectrodensitometer. There are many available from several different manufacturers. Here are a few steps to setting the instrument options correctly:
- First calibrate the instrument and then navigate to the density tab.
- Next scroll to the options menu. Be certain to select color as "All"; mode as "Absolute" and reference to "Auto."
- Last, measure in the US, as status "T."
Take a measurement on a three-color build, such as 50% cyan, 40% magenta, and 40% yellow. the response from the measurement will reflect as a V for visual density. This value is used as a reference only. the focus is on the cyan, magenta, and yellow response. These values will represent how neutral the print actual is. Values such as 0.56, 0.57, and 0.58 are typical results. Ideally the goal would be to have these values be within 0.03 of each other. A perfectly neutral print would have all three colors reflect exactly the same number.
For instance, let's say your measurement read cyan 0.56, magenta 0.56 and yellow 0.60. In this situation you would need to either lower the yellow density or raise the cyan and magenta in order to produce a balance of all three process colors.
This tip is a quick way to determine what color might be out of balance and gives the operator an immediate response as to what corrective action should be taken.
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 Quote For The Week "The hardest thing to learn in life is which bridge to cross and which to burn."
David Russell
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