Kilgore Print Services Makes Move After 50 Years

Kilgore College Print Services’ recent move may not have been the most fluid transition from one location to another, but Manager Mike Ford still takes pride in one thing:

Kelly Thompson (left) and Mike Ford, who have worked at Kilgore College Print Services for 29 and 23 years, respectively, stand with one of their Konica Minolta digital printers inside their new facility.

“We lost practically no production time during the move,” he reports.

In May 2016, Ford found out that the Kilgore, Texas, in-plant where he had worked for 23 years — the same one that he took print classes in from 1966 to 1968­— needed to relocate to a building approximately one mile away. The college now needed to use the space for training its on-campus Police Academy and Fire Academy.

The new space wouldn’t add any square footage, and it would be a big change for Ford and coworker Kelly Thompson, who had been with the in-plant for 29 years. It was decided the move would take place over the winter holidays so the shop could be up and running by the time students returned in January.

Print Services’ new location was previously used as part of an elementary and middle school — the same school system that Ford and his brother attended, as did their mother before them. The school was vacated about four years ago so it was in need of new paint, cleaning and construction. With the time frame given though, Print Services needed to begin the move before those changes were finished.

That, however, wasn’t the most difficult aspect of the move. The in-plant’s 50-year-old Seybold Citation paper cutter, installed when the shop opened in 1966, has been a challenge to move. The shop hired a firm from Dallas that specializes in moving printing equipment to break it down, move it and reassemble it. As of press time, this move was still in progress. In the meantime, Ford says that Print Services has been able to use a local printer’s paper cutter to complete its work.

Fortunately, it was never an option for the college to close the in-plant and outsource all of its work; there just aren’t many printing shops in the semi-rural area of Kilgore, almost two hours east of Dallas.

“A lot of our business has an extremely fast turnaround,” he says. “We do a lot of things in less than 24 hours and customers are accustomed to that. If we weren’t here, they wouldn’t get that service. That’s more valuable than a dollar amount.”

Most of the work Print Services produces with its Konica Minolta C8000 color press and two recently installed black-and-white Konica Minolta 1052s consists of business cards, envelopes, letterheads, forms and bookstore packets, many of which are three-hole punched and then shrink wrapped. Print Services also offers stapling, saddle-stitching, and simultaneous print and punch.