Eastern Reprographics Association - alive, well and looking forward

Received by e-mail early this afternoon:

Hi Joel:

How are you? Long time no talk. I hope things are going well for you.

Attached is a press release about the Eastern Reprographics Association. As you well know, the ERA is one of the last remaining associations for the reprographics community. The press release describes some upcoming developments, and is intended to show the community that the association is still vital.

I hope you'll be able to publish this information in Reprographics 101. Your blog is one of the last places people can still find good info about the industry. Let me know if you'd like to talk to someone at the association.

Thank you very much.

Ed Avis

Okay, here’s the Press Release that Ed asked me to put up on Repro 101:

June 26, 2012

Contact: Ed Avis, edavis@edavisassociates.com, 708-218-7755

Eastern Reprographics Association Looks Forward

Gathering planned, newsletter underway, dues on hold

The reprographics industry has seen a number of challenges in recent years, and the Eastern Reprographics Association is helping its members successfully face those challenges. The association is planning several initiatives in the coming year: an inspiring gathering, an information-packed newsletter, and a year-long dues vacation.

Panama City Gathering

The association is planning its next gathering in Panama City, Florida, on April 18-21, 2013. The event, to be held at the Bay Point Golf Resort & Spa, will feature a full schedule of educational and social events to help reprographics professionals network with others and learn ways to grow their businesses. The business program will feature presentations of new market opportunities by leading vendors. The gathering, open to members and prospective members, will provide an inspiring forum to help attendees increase their success.

ERA Newsletter

The association is launching a newsletter that will provide news about the association and the A/E/C industry, and how-to articles to help members improve their businesses. The newsletter, to be edited by former Modern Reprographics editor Ed Avis, will be provided in hard-copy and electronic formats. The first issue of the newsletter will be sent to members in late summer 2012.

Dues Vacation

To help members strengthen their bottom lines, and to encourage new members, the ERA will not be charging dues in 2012. The "dues vacation" will save members $125.

"The Eastern Reprographics Association is a vibrant organization, and we want to help our members succeed as well," says Stephanie Justice, ERA president and operations manager at Bay Area Blueprint and Reprographics. "And we hope these exciting initiatives will encourage other reprographics professionals, from the Eastern U.S. and other parts of the country, to join us."

For membership and other information about the Eastern Reprographics Association, contact the association at membership@eastrepro.com.

Eastern Reprographics Association - 4th (and final) convention review post

On Saturday morning this past weekend, moderators David Brownell (Managing Principal, The Brownell Group, CT) and Mike Cully (President, AIR Graphics, Boston) led a “room-wide” roundtable discussion titled, “the Future of Reprographics.”

[Dennis Dillon (one of ARC’s VP’s) had to leave the convention early, so he could not participate as one of the moderators, as had previously been planned.]

This particular topic – the future of reprographics – is a difficult topic for reprographers.

For details of what was covered during this session of the ERA convention, please visit the ERA’s web-site, at www.eastrepro.com, as I’m pretty sure that David will, at some point in the near future, post on the ERA's web-site the presentation file he used as a guide to the roundtable discussion about the future of reprographics.

David's presentation incuded a SWOT analysis.

- - - - - - -

I’m not planning to make any further comments about the ERA convention, with the exception of the following.

Charlie Hackworth, a long-time ERA and reprographics industry member, suggested that the ERA get together a “focus committee” to determine what the ERA should be looking at, going forward. Bob Roperti, President of the IRgA, said about the ERA convention for “next year,”….. our goal should be to have a minimum of 50 reprographics companies in attendance at next year’s ERA convention.” This year, only 17 reprographics companies registered for the convention.

Eastern Reprographics Association - 3rd convention review post

Joanne Underwood, Senior Account Executive with Monster Color (Monster is owned by Lynn Imaging, Kentucky), gave a presentation titled, “How Did We Get Here”, which was a story about Lynn Imaging’s development of its Monster Color business.

It was a thoroughly interesting story, and anyone who attended this presentation and who is interested in further developing their large-format color (or grand-format color) business, or interested in adding large-format (or grand-format) color to their business offerings, will go home with “actionable” information.

Joanne started her presentation with a series of slides showing some of the larger projects Monster Color has completed. That was the “where we are today” part of her presentation.

After that, she dropped back in time….. to the time when Lynn Imaging first got into the large-format color business – with a couple of large-format HP ink-jet printers.

And, after that, Joanne provided a detailed list of what you need to do to get into the business and a brief list of the “customer-types” you should consider pursuing.

For those of you who have not yet pushed into the large-format color business – and I’m not talking about color CAD printing, I’m talking about “display graphics” color printing – she suggested that you find a mentor who has experience in the business and learn from that mentor. In Lynn Imaging’s case, their mentor was TPM. (The Print Machine, So. Carolina.)

Today, Monster Color is a serious player in the large-format and grand-format color business in the markets it serves. Monster’s business grew so large that Lynn moved it to a new 10,000 sq ft facility.

One of my former competitors has grown its “large-format and grand-format color” business to be larger than its AEC reprographics business – they’ve done an outstanding job – that company is Triangle Reprographics, Orlando, FL.

I’m not going to go into any more detail about Joanne’s presentation ….. and that’s because I suggested to her that the ERA should post her presentation on the ERA web-site, and I was informed that the ERA would do that. So, visit the ERA web-site, www.eastrepro.com, in the near future, to access Joanne’s excellent presentation.

Eastern Reprographics Association - 2nd convention review post

Suri Suriyakumar; certainly, one of the most gifted speakers to ever grace the reprographics industry. (I’m not “blowing smoke up…..”)

Suri’s presentation was, without question, one of the best presentations I’ve ever heard anyone in the reprographics industry give at an industry event.

Yes, you could feel Suri’s passion for the business.

I first met Suri in 1995 at his office (Ford Graphic’s downtown office) in San Francisco. At that point in his reprographics career, he was still fairly new to the business and industry ….. but it was easy to tell that he already had a passion for the business. Simply my opinion, but if you are not passionate about the business you are in, you are not going to achieve huge success. Since I first met Suri, I’ve had the pleasure of listening to several presentations he’s given. At PEiR Group meetings, at IRGA conventions. He’s an extremely organized speaker. And a very personable, engaging speaker. However, although I’ve heard Suri do presentations before today, I don’t recall that any of Suri’s previous presentations were as “revealing” informative, and thought provoking as the one he gave today, at the Eastern (Regional) Reprographics convention.

Revealing? How So?

Well, the title the convention-events agenda used for his presentation was….. “The Future of Reprographics.” But, that’s not how I would title the presentation Suri gave today. If I were to give his presentation a title, it would have been, “ARC’s Strategy, Going Forward; What and Why.” Suri gave his audience an in-depth, revealing, informative look at what ARC is doing to capitalize on its assets, discussing the key revenue-segments of ARC’s business and sharing with his audience ARC’s approach to the FM business, the MPS business, the Large-Format Color business, and the Technology (software and cloud) business. Suri went into great detail about the MPS business, including the estimated overall size of the MPS market, players who compete for MPS business, what a reprographer has to do to develop an MPS business, and why a reprographer should seriously consider entering the MPS business.

Just to give you some idea of how informative and engaging Suri’s presentation was - - - it was supposed to last one hour (including Q&A), but it last nearly two hours. I don’t think any of the attendees wanted Suri to stop!

I have never, ever heard the CEO of a reprographics company go into such detail about his/her company’s strategy at an industry event. I’m not saying that Suri shared with his audience everything “one needs to know”, but it was a truly revealing and informative presentation.

I can’t believe that only 16 of ARC’s competitors registered for this convention and that only 14 or 15 actually heard Suri’s presentation. Those that attended the convention and heard Suri speak went away with “actionable” information.

And, to me, this was a perfect example of why reprographers need to continue to support industry associations.

Eastern Reprographics Association - 1st convention review post

I’m taking a break from today’s ERRA (Eastern Regional Reprographics Association) convention in order to write this article, which expect to be one of several articles I will post about the short 3-day convention I’m attending, here in Hilton Head Island, S.C. At this point, we’ve finished the first two days of the convention; tomorrow will be the last day.

For an overall comment, I’d like to say that ….. , so far, this convention, which was sparsely attended, was one of the more interesting conventions I’ve attended….. and I think that’s “saying something,” inasmuch as I’ve been involved in the reprographics industry for 40+ years. If you did not set aside the time to attend this convention, you missed out!

David Brownell did an excellent job putting together this convention, and his convention-associate, Dennis Dillon, did an excellent job putting together the “education” program. A “round of applause” to both of them.

I mentioned that the convention was sparsely attended. Only 17 reprographics companies registered to attend the convention, and at least one reprographics company (and perhaps more) did not make it to the convention, due to the after-effects of the ugly snowstorm in the northeastern U.S., which cut power to thousands of homes and businesses.

Reprographics companies who were registered to attend included:

A1 Blueprint – Atlanta, GA

AIR Graphics – Boston, MA

ARC -

-ARC Eastern, Columbia, MD

-ARC Eastern, Richmond, VA

-ARC Eastern, Philadelphia, PA

Bay Area Blueprint – Pensacola, FL

Capitol Imaging – Little Rock, AR

Charleston Blueprint – Charleston, SC

FLM Reprographics – Fairfield, NJ

Hackworth Reprographics – Chesapeake, VA

Jiffy Reprographics – Clearwater, FL

Lynn Imaging – Lexington, KY

New England Blueprint – Springfield, MA

Plan & Print Systems – Syracuse, NY

Print-O-Stat – York, PA

Reprodux Copy Centers – Toronto, CA

RPG Digital – Laurel, MD

Starr Image Products – Butler, PA

TuscaBlue – Tuscaloosa, AL

About the sparse attendance, Bob Roperti, President of Jiffy and current President of the IRGA, remarked that, in past years at just “SRA” (Southeastern Regional Reprographics Association, the association now merged into the Eastern Regional *ERA”), upwards of 200 reprographics companies would attend conventions. When you consider that the Eastern Repro Association is now combined with the Southeastern Repro Association, the fact that only 17 reprographics companies registered for this year’s convention …. is incredible (if not abysmal.) Is the sparse attendance a reflection of “reprographer apathy”, a reflection of “economic times”, or maybe both?

Reviews of “education” sessions, which have taken place, so far, will appear in separate subsequent posts on Repro 101.

Just to mention them:

Suri, Chairman & CEO of ARC, gave a presentation of ARC’s current strategy. There’s an old saying, “worth the price of admission.” As to Suri’s presentation, that’s an understatement. Suri’s presentation was, without question, one of the best presentations I’ve ever heard anyone in the reprographics industry give at an industry event.

Joanne Underwood, Senior Account Executive with Monster Color (Monster is owned by Lynn Imaging, Kentucky), gave a presentation titled, “How Did We Get Here”, which was a story about Lynn’s development of its Monster Color business. It was a thoroughly interesting story, and anyone who attended this presentation and who is interested in further developing their large-format color business, or interested in adding large-format color to their business offerings, will go home with “actionable” information.