Serving Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Wyoming
April 1, 2015


Welcome New Member Frontier Printing!        


WSPA is very pleased to welcome new member company Frontier Printing from Ft. Collins, Colorado.  Frontier is a full-service commercial printer that specializes in wide format work and also offers promotional products to its customers.  Visit  www.frontierprintcenter.com.
Printers Roundtable Held In Albuquerque

WSPA's first ever Printer's Roundtable was held last week in conjunction with the Technical Association of the Graphics Arts' annual meeting.  The event was held at Starline Printing and featured speakers Michael Makin and Dr. Mark Bohan from Printing Industries of America.
 
A frank exchange was held on the state of the economy both locally and nationally and Dr. Bohan shared his thoughts on current technical trends impacting the industry.   Printers at the roundtable shared how they had diversified their operations to maintain profitability and compete in an industry with no shortage of challenges. 

CSR Training
       
WSPA's Becoming a High Performance CSR Training Program held last week at Pacific Office Automation was an overwhelming success.

20 print professionals from the Phoenix area attended the fast paced program, led by industry sales guru Gary Stang.

The three-hour program covered a number of topics, including:
  • Professional problem solving
  • Successfully addressing customer complaints
  • Stick-handling irate customers
  • Delivering bad news and
  • Time management.
Participants shared their best customer service practices and a number of customer interactions were played out by the group.

A similar program is being planned for Denver in May.
Print Excellence Judging
      

The judging for the Print Excellence Awards competition was held last Friday at the ASU Print Lab in Mesa, Arizona.

 

More than 130 outstanding print pieces were submitted to the competition and the judges had the very difficult task of selecting the winning entries from this group. 

 

With the exception of self promotion pieces, every entry was presented anonymously to the judges who examined each piece with great scrutiny checking for color consistency, cross-over accuracy, ink coverage and many other factors.

 

 

The winning entries will be showcased at two awards nights later this month.  The first will be held on Thursday, April 23rd at Rustler's Rooste in Phoenix and the second will be held at the Embassy Suites Downtown in Denver on April 30th.   Each event will feature the presentation of third, second and Print Excellence Award winners, along with the Best of Show and People's Choice Awards.  WSPA's Employee Recognition Awards will also be presented at both locations.

 

A huge thank you to Cathy Skoglund and her ASU team for the Herculean task of cataloging each entry and coordinating the judging of the competition. 


Speaking of the Awards - Get Your Tickets!
       
The Print Excellence Awards are just three weeks away.  Make sure you reserve your tickets as soon as possible to see the best print from our region as well as catch up with old friends.

The Phoenix event will be held on Thursday, April 23rd at Rustler's Rooste.  To reserve your tickets or a discounted table, click on PHOENIX REGISTRATION.

The Denver event will be held on Thursday, April 30th at the Downtown Embassy Suites Hotel.  To reserve your tickets or a discounted table, click on DENVER REGISTRATION.

Detailed information on both events can be found on the WSPA Website. 
Deadline Extended for Employee Recognition Awards

Everyone enjoys receiving praise for their work and what better way to recognize your key staff than for them to receive a WSPA Employee Recognition Award in front of their peers.

 

This year in conjunction with WSPA's Print Excellence Award events, held April 23 at Rustler's Rooste in Phoenix and April 30 at the Embassy Suites Hotel in Denver deserving employees will be presented beautiful certificates recognizing their contributions.

 

How can your recognize your key staff?  Simply download and complete the fillable PDF form on WSPA's website (www.wsprint.org/emp-recog) and return by email to June Crespo at jcrespo@wsprint.org or FAX (412-259-2016).  You can enter as many employees as you would like.   

 

The cost of each certificate is only $25 and you can recognize 5 employees for just $100.  Deadline for submissions has been extended one week to  April 8, 2015.  


Member Benefit Spotlight: FSC Savings Program

If you are currently FSC certified or interested in certification under the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) and have annual print sales less than $5 million, WSPA has a program to help you!

The Regional Affiliate Certificate Group (RACG), providing FSC Chain of Custody Group Certification, is an excellent opportunity to lower your yearly annual audit costs.  Or, if you are new to the FSC world, it's going to give you the advantage of FSC certification at a fraction of the cost of individual certification.

Group certification under the FSC logo is available to qualified, eligible companies who are members in good standing with WSPA.  Companies applying for group certification must have annual sales less than 5 million in Forest Product Business (generally commercial printing, package printing, etc.).  Total sales can exceed $5 million if there are divisions separately conducting mailing, website development/hosting, fulfillment, etc.  Sales volumes will be subject to audit by program auditors.

There is no difference between individual certificates and a group certificate for FSC logo utilization, company requirements and the use of FSC certified papers on projects utilizing the FSC logo, which some of your customers may demand you have.

Because of the aggregating, the costs for certification will be substantially reduced.  The group guidelines allow a subset of all companies to be fully audited (by random) and all participating firms will receive an "internal," or overview audit on an annual basis.

If you'd like to explore savings in this area, please contact June Crespo at 1-844-237-1550.

Weekly Photo Feature:  
ARE YOU KIDDING ME?
 

Each week E-Connects will share incredible photos on just how lax companies can be when it comes to safety. 

The goal - to keep a safe work environment front and center on the minds of all of your employees.

Walking a safety tight rope. 
If you come across a funny safety pic you think should be featured, email Michael Makin at mmakin@wsprint.org.


Quote For The Week 

"April 1 - This is the day upon which we are reminded of what we are on the other three hundred and sixty-four."

Mark Twain