Snags cannot be used for lumber or paper, but they are a favorite nesting site for Great Blue Herons. Large colonies or “rookeries” may have hundreds of individual Blue Heron nests, each nest reaching three to four feet in diameter.

Photographer Kate Sartoris captured these photos at a rookery on the Finch-managed Smith Farm in Moreau, NY:

Unfortunately, many landowners cut down snags without much thought to their wildlife value or of the potential management options that can safely prolong the existence of the tree. Finch Paper’s foresters are trained to identify snags and other trees that show signs of use by wildlife, and mark them clearly so they won’t be removed.

Help us spread the word: Dead trees “live on” as wildlife trees for all to enjoy!

About the Smith Farm

The Smith Farm is a 1,000-acre tract of forestland bordering the Hudson River in Moreau, NY. When Finch purchased the parcel in 1959, it had been used for generations as agricultural land by Quakers. The barns and sheds on the property are mere skeletons now as Finch has since let the forest regenerate on its own. The pines and mixed hardwoods are now a source of fiber for the Finch mill and home to numerous species of birds, as well as active populations of beaver, deer and other small mammals.

By Richard Romano

Navigating the ever-changing and often complex world of postal rates and regulations is not always an easy task. Printing companies that have intimate knowledge of the ins and outs of the postal system can provide a premium service to customers whose primary marketing channel is mailing. Chanhassen, Minnesota’s IWCO Direct has built its reputation by providing just this service—and more—for its direct mail customers.

Out of Many, One

Frank Beddor had founded Instant Services in 1969 in downtown Minneapolis with one sheetfed press, four employees, and an emphasis on service and speed. A few years later, Beddor acquired a web press and moved to the suburbs of Chanhassen. The company’s “campus” grew to accommodate an envelope company (Victory Envelope) and a lettershop (United Mailing), and the trio was run as three independent businesses. “Even though the envelopes were being shipped across the street to the lettershop, the management teams never met each other,” says Debora Haskel, a 13-year veteran of IWCO Direct and the company’s Vice President of Marketing. That also meant there was a lot of redundancy.

In 1999, incoming CEO and President Jim Andersen saw an opportunity to consolidate the operations. The printing business had been called Instant Web Inc., and the combined enterprise began to be referred to as the Instant Web Companies and, eventually, IWCO Direct. The joining of forces gave the new business a unique strategy. “It was focused on a total package solution, which was quite revolutionary in the industry,” says Haskel. “We worked really hard to focus on what was the value proposition of that single source and that supply chain,” says Haskel. “We in effect were the supply chain.”

Part of that value proposition was being able to solve production problems—if, say, the flaps on the envelopes were sticking—in-house, but a major part was being able to keep the colors, the graphics, and other branding consistent from component to component, tricky to do if you’re working with multiple vendors.

First-Class Mailing

IWCO Direct’s customer base has grown over the decades to comprise some of the biggest names in six primary vertical markets: financial services; insurance; loyalty programs; “subscription services”; health care; and retail. If you check your home or office mailbox, chances are you have something that was produced by IWCO Direct.

Part of the total package solution includes a partnership with the postal service to streamline the mailing itself—and save the customer money. The USPS offers discounts to mailers if they presort the mail so that it’s delivered to the post office ready to be sent directly to specific ZIP codes or even to specific carrier routes. Having as many direct mail clients as IWCO Direct has also allows them to take further advantage of cost savings from commingling, or combining many customers’ mailings to create one mailstream. In fact, IWCO Direct was the first commercial enterprise to take advantage of commingling.

“We’ve worked very closely with the postal service, and won many partnership awards,” adds Haskel. The company has helped pilot test postal initiatives such as Intelligent Mail bar codes, seamless acceptance, and other efficiency technologies the Post Office has been developing. These technologies have advantages not just in terms of cost, but also in facilitating customers’ integrated marketing campaigns.

“Information about the mail is going to be as important, if not more important, than the mail piece itself,” says Haskel. “If I can tell you, as my customer, when that piece is going to be in someone’s mailbox, that may be more valuable to you than the actual piece itself.” Especially when tying together a printed mail piece, direct e-mail, text messaging, or even telephone marketing.

Digital Pumps Up the Volume

IWCO Direct and its forebears began with offset printing equipment, but have been moving in more digital directions, a trend the company finds is becoming more prevalent throughout the direct mail printing industry—now, especially, for high-volume jobs, thanks to high-speed inkjet.

“In the last few months, the floodgates have really opened in terms of people getting excited about the technology, about the quality improvements,” says Haskel.

They recently acquired an Océ ColorStream 3500 high-speed full-color inkjet press, a selection driven—after much research—not only by the quality they saw from its output, but also from the reduced learning curve thanks to the staff’s familiarity with the Océ workflow and other Océ equipment.

One challenge that turned out to be bigger than expected was substrate performance on high-speed inkjet. Enter Finch Paper. “Finch has been a great partner for us,” says Haskel. “Our success with the 3500 is due in part to Finch working with us to find paper stocks that run well on that equipment.” Finch also assisted IWCO Direct with color profiling and matching via Finch’s new FIT (Fluid + Ink + Toner) Color Management and Workflow Services.

Brick by Brick

Ultimately, Haskel says, IWCO Direct thinks of its company culture as akin to the adage of the bricklayer. “You walk up to one person and ask what he’s doing,” she explains. “‘I’m spreading mortar,’ he says. You walk up to the next person and ask what he’s doing, and he says, ‘I’m taking the bricks with the mortar and I’m putting them down in a row.’ The third guy says, ‘I’m building a cathedral.’

“We are building the cathedral for our customers’ direct mail programs. It’s not just ‘I’m the guy running the press,’ or ‘I’m the guy running the envelope converter,’ or ‘I’m the woman running a high-speed inserter in the lettershop.’ It’s about the whole program. ‘I’m part of a team that is creating the whole thing.’”

Spring thaw is upon us in New York’s Adirondack Park; a time of year commonly referred to as “mud season” by foresters. Harvesting operations slow down to a crawl during the spring, when logging roads become soft and often impassible for skidders and other heavy machinery.

Much of our yearly timber production, as much as 35 to 45%, is harvested during winter months when the frozen ground improves accessibility for machinery and the snowpack provides a layer of protection for the fragile undergrowth.

It seems that winters have been getting shorter, putting a strain on loggers who need to make a living, and on forest product companies like Finch who rely on winter timber production.

Come to find out, it may be more than just a theory.

Research by the University of Connecticut and the University of Wisconsin shows an evident trend of frozen ground starting later and ending earlier each year. The findings were based on information from the National Climactic Data Center for seven counties in Wisconsin between 1949 and 2012, and found that the counties experienced a two- to four-week reduction of frozen ground.

A very interesting article on these findings was published recently on the environmental news blog The Daily Climate. In the article, Adirondack timber harvester Jeannel Lizotte, a longtime contractor for Finch, says that he has lost about a month of productive timber harvesting time due to warmer weather since he started his logging business in 1970.

“We used to go on the job when the ground was frozen, around the first of November, or around Thanksgiving,” said Lizotte. “Now it’s going around Christmas time. This year it was New Year’s before we got on the winter roads.”

You can read the full article here.

To celebrate Arbor Day on Friday, April 26, I visited an elementary school near Finch Paper’s Glens Falls, N.Y., mill to spread the word about the vital role trees play in our lives.

I read a third grade class the book, “The Tree Farmer,” co-authored by Chuck Leavell, longtime keyboardist for the Rolling Stones, who is also a tree farmer and conservationist. The book explains how trees provide us with the wood for our homes, furniture, pulpwood for paper, and other products — and how it is people’s responsibility to keep forests sustainably growing.

Following the reading, I planted a White Pine seedling outside the school as students looked on intently. While students were very impressed when I told them the tree may live between 100-400 years, they seemed even more interested in the earth worms that came up with the soil!

As a paper company that relies on trees for fiber, Finch has an inherent responsibility to be stewards of our forests. Our team of foresters practice and teach sustainable forestry in the woods every day, and we’re happy to take that message to schools on Arbor Day.

As a father, sharing this message with Mrs. Murphy’s third grade class was an especially rewarding experience for me.

When a student was asked by a TV reporter what she learned from the visit, she replied: “That trees are used to make a lot of things. Like, I didn’t know they were used to make cribs ands pianos,” she said.

Mission accomplished.

Sugar Maple is one of the most versatile, useful and important species in the northern forest.

Among the most shade-tolerant of large deciduous trees, Sugar Maple can grow comfortably in any type of soil, except sand. Sugar Maples engage in hydraulic lift, drawing water from lower soil layers into the upper, drier layers. This not only benefits the tree itself, but many other plants growing around it.

Sugar Maple is one of the hardest and densest of the northern hardwoods and is prized for many products, from furniture and flooring to sports equipment and musical instruments. Trees with wood grain in curly or “birdseye” patterns are especially sought after by cabinet makers, wood workers and artisans.

Sugar Maple is also an important component of the local economies and communities within the northern forest. It is a favorite street and garden tree, because it is fairly fast growing, provides large amounts of shade and has beautiful fall color, bringing swarms of leaf-peekers to northern communities in the fall foliage season. In addition, the sap of Sugar Maple is used to make a variety of maple syrup and candy products, further helping local economies.

And let’s not forget the “coolest” seed dispersal system of any hardwood in the northern forest. The “double-winged” samara acts as a whirlybird and allows Sugar Maple seeds to be dispersed long distances on windy autumn days.

__

Len has been responsible for the day-to-day supervision of the Finch Forest Management field operations since 2001. He joined Finch in 1986 as a District Forester and has held positions as Forest Supervisor and Forest Manager. Len earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Forest Management from the University of Vermont (UVM) School of Natural Resources.

Printing smooth spot colors on uncoated paper highlights the unique characteristics it offers. The natural peaks and valleys of the paper’s surface is what makes uncoated a powerful choice. It also means that uncoated papers are inherently different than their coated counterparts.

A key point for consideration when printing spot colors is understanding that certain colors are problematic and contribute to mottling on uncoated paper. The colors that tend to yield an imperfect result contain large percentages of PANTONE® Reflex Blue or PANTONE Transparent White.

A solution for colors with a large percentage of PANTONE Transparent White is to substitute the white with a PANTONE Opaque White in the formula. By doing so, the chance of mottling issues are significantly decreased. The issues of scuffing with PANTONE Reflex Blue can be resolved by adding a drying agent and/or a matte varnish. Always proof spot colors with ink drawdowns on the specified paper, with and without a varnish.

Question: How many gallons of sap does it take to produce one gallon of maple syrup?

A. 5 gallons
B. 10 gallons
C. 20 gallons
D. 40 gallons

Sap from a Sugar Maple tree drips from a spout and into a
collection bucket. (Photo Courtesy of Kate Sartoris Photography)

Answer: D. 40. Depending on the percent of sugar content of the sap, between 30-40 gallons are needed to produce just one gallon of maple syrup.

Sap buckets hanging from Sugar Maple trees throughout the Adirondacks are a sure sign that spring is here. The sap extracted from the maple trees is boiled down to remove the water, leaving behind only the naturally sweet syrup.

While Sugar Maple trees are the most common syrup-producing trees in the Northeast (and have the highest sugar content), Norway Maple, Silver Maple and Red Maple trees are all tapped for sap in other regions of the U.S.

With more than 500 maple syrup producers, New York State is No. 2 in the nation in syrup production (behind Vermont), making 360,000 gallons of syrup annually.

For more information, visit the New York State Maple Producers Association website at
http://www.nysmaple.com/maple-syrup/

On April 16, Finch Digital Application Manager Mary Schilling will give an educational presentation on color management at the annual Xplor International User Conference and Vendor Forum. Schilling leads FIT Color Management and Workflow Services which helps printers optimize their workflow — from design to finishing — to deliver consistent, repeatable color while lowering the total cost of print. Her presentation, “Paper is the First Color,” will examine how paper is a critical color in any print workflow.

You can register for Schilling’s presentation by visiting www.cvent.com/events/2013-xplor-international-user-conference-and-vendor-forum/ ]]> http://finchpaper.com/birds-eye-view-blog/finch-news/2013/04/finch-paper-leads-the-digital-print-conversation-at-notable-inkjet-conferences/feed/ 0 http://finchpaper.com/birds-eye-view-blog/case-studies/2013/04/top-printing-schools-adapt-to-the-digital-age/ http://finchpaper.com/birds-eye-view-blog/case-studies/2013/04/top-printing-schools-adapt-to-the-digital-age/#comments Tue, 02 Apr 2013 14:01:01 +0000 john http://finchpaper.com/?p=9462

In our inaugural, Spring edition of The Finch Paper, we featured Alexandria, Virginia’s Global Printing and its forward-thinking CEO Jon Budington. Global Printing is a prime example of a commercial printing company that has embraced new technologies and new media, repositioning itself to offer more than print services, by adding a growing marketing & creative services arm, Global Thinking, Global has doubled in size since 2009 and has grown revenues five-fold.

Budington is a Rochester Institute of Technology’s (RIT) alum, and often recruits talent from his alma mater as well as other top Graphic Communications schools, such as California Polytechnic State University (CalPoly). Both schools have tailored their programs to include print and graphic design, as well as web and mobile marketing.

We reached out to the chair of RIT’s Media Sciences Program, Chris Bondy, and the chair of Cal Poly’s Graphic Communication Department, Dr. Harvey Levenson, to learn more about how their programs have changed with the times.

Mr. Bondy says that the focal point of RIT’s program is no longer a printed piece of paper, but rather “offers students the opportunity to learn about the integration of print and new media, as it is reflected in our digital society.”

“We’re looking at how print is relevant alongside emerging products and solutions in the cross-media space,” Bondy says. “Whereas most commercial printing companies feel as though it is ‘print or die,’ we believe that they are incumbents. They understand how to process data and store content while coupling that with print,” Bondy says.

He says printers are the knowledge holders and they should market themselves as a valuable resource. Oh, and he has some friendly advice: refrain from using the term: “Marketing Services Provider.”

“I think the term ‘marketing services provider’ is just a buzz word. Our future leaders will be ‘media architects’ — scientists who are able to support marketing strategies by providing data profiles and strategic industry insight.”

Dr. Levenson says that Cal Poly embraces partnerships with leading press manufacturers like Ricoh and HP to expose students to the latest print technologies.

“In our Digital Printing Lab, students have access to Ricoh (digital color production presses), Konica Minolta, HP Indigo, and Heidelberg presses,” Dr. Levenson explains. The lab is located at Cal Poly’s state-of-the-art Graphic Communication Institute, an outreach of the university’s Graphic Communication Department that is a resource for both students and print industry professionals who utilize its facilities for workshops, conferences and seminars, custom training programs, consulting, as well as laboratory and research initiatives.

Echoing the sentiments of Chris Bondy, Dr. Levenson says the curriculum at Cal Poly is changing and adapting along with the market, with students now being trained equally in Adobe Creative Suite and print media.

“It is not as print-centric as it once was. It is about 50% print and 50% imaging graphics, with more emphasis now on web-to-print and other means of communication.”

He notes that enrollments for the Graphic Communications program hover around 300 per year, and that number rose this year.

“We’re turning away more than we can accept.”

That’s refreshing news for an aging industry that will soon be relying on a new generation of leaders to bridge the print-to-web gap.