I started working in the Prepress Department at Malloy when I was a student at the University of Michigan in order to earn some money to pay my school bills. I wasn't intending to stay around after I graduated, but I'm still here. In fact, I've been at Malloy longer than any other person in the company.In 1963, Prepress was called Layout, a descriptive word for the work we did laying out pages of film and taping them into imposed flats to make plates from. We had a very lean staff at the time and often worked ten to twelve hour days and weekends to get rush orders out the door. This could make for some long work weeks, but we had a great team and managed to have fun in our jobs. Many stories, many stories!In the early 70's, I was managing the Prepress Department when Herb Upton asked me to start calling on our customers in the Midwest and still manage Prepress. It was an exciting challenge for me, and I rapidly discovered that I really enjoyed sales. It wasn't long before I was spending nearly all of my time on the road and my days in prepress were behind me.In 1978, I made my first sales call in New York City, seeking work from Harper & Row Publishers. Although I didn't walk out of the appointment with a purchase order, not that I expected to, it wasn't long before we began to work with them and several of the other large publishers in New York.Our business with the East Coast publishers grew along with the amount of time I spent in the East. My travel routine quickly fell into place: I would leave home in Ann Arbor on most Tuesday mornings to fly to New York, and return on Friday evening. This itinerary hasn't changed since, and, as long as it works, I'm happy with it.The company has changed dramatically over the years; we're much bigger now, we have no camera equipment - all new pages are imposed CTP, and our webs churn out a lot more pages. However, I'm proud to say the camaraderie and focus on taking care of customers have not been lost, and I still enjoy spreading the good news about Malloy. |