All the Right Moves

A whirlwind courtship and a bold business overhaul were catalysts for Ray Embury's personal and professional success and stability.

Born and raised just north of Detroit, Embury headed south to the Sunshine State to earn a business degree at Florida Atlantic University. One sunny day in March 1974, Embury was boating with a friend when their attention was drawn by two young women—twin sisters—standing on a bridge.

"I said, 'Hey, Vinny, why don't you spin this thing around and give these girls a ride?'" Embury recalls. "He did, and the rest was history."

Embury hit it off (to say the least) with one of the women, a visiting New Englander named Cal. She was in town for five more days and, at the end of her stay in South Florida, he asked her to marry him.Cal agreed, with one condition: Embury had to be willing to move to Connecticut with her. He moved.

Embury had proposed on St. Patrick's Day and the couple tied the knot less than six months later on Labor Day. Today, still happily married, the Emburys have two 20-something sons, one of whom will wed his high-school sweetheart this November.

"35 years later, I'm still a believer in love at first sight," Embury declares.

Back in 1974, having moved to a new town with a wedding on the horizon, Embury needed a job—fast. He saw a help-wanted ad in the local newspaper, applied and was hired as a copier technician for the Royal Typewriter Co. in Windsor, Conn. As years passed, Embury moved up steadily through the ranks at Royal, which was purchased by Japan-based Konica in the 1980s. He served as supervisor at a branch office, and then returned to corporate headquarters as a product support specialist and, later, supervisor of publications.

Embury made the move to Konica's in-plant in 1995-1996. "I was running publications and sending all of my jobs to the in-plant," he remembers, "when I was given the opportunity to manage the print-business side. And that just opened up a whole new world for me and my career."

From Offset to Digital

When Embury arrived on the production floor, output was entirely offset. In 2000, Embury suggested and spearheaded the shop's conversion to a print-on-demand center using Konica's newly introduced 7075 digital copiers with connectivity capability. A projected year-and-a-half changeover actually took three months and was entirely successful.

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