All the Right Moves

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

Paradoxically, that immediate success—fewer manuals and parts catalogs gathering dust on a shelf, along with a considerable reduction in warehouse space—also initially meant less work for the in-plant.

"When I approached our president about phasing out offset, he thought I was pulling the rug out from under my own feet," Embury laughs.

Embury, however, had a plan to maintain solid footing: He wanted to expand the in-plant into a commercial printer.

"We blew our projections out of the water," he exclaims. "We anticipated $36,000 in revenue, but actually generated over $100,000 in the first year. Today we are over $350,000 annually—with a 61 percent margin." Embury no longer has to justify the in-plant's existence each fiscal year.

Local printers couldn't compete with the in-plant for short-run work. Yet Embury didn't just want to beat his competitors; he also wanted to join them in order to provide a full complement of services.

"We had our limitations," he acknowledges. "For example, our maximum sheet size is 13x19?. But if people walked in looking for posters, we didn't want to turn them away."

So, Embury established partnerships with a diverse handful of area printers and print brokers and still maintains those relationships.

The in-plant, which is now called the bizhub Image Center, has reduced its staff from 14 to five, but all of those former employees found work with the shop's print partners, he says. Currently, about 20 percent of the Image Center's work originates internally, while commercial jobs comprise the remaining 80 percent.

Now, at 62 years old, Embury has spent his entire career with one organization, which has operated as Konica Minolta since the merger of the two companies in 2004.

"Even though we've changed our name half a dozen times, we've enjoyed tremendous security throughout the years," he opines. "Other people are surprised that so many of [Konica Minolta's employees] have worked here for so long. But this company has shown us loyalty right back."

Big perks of working for a copier company, according to Embury, are access to (and in-house tech support for) the "latest and greatest" equipment—at cost.

"Our engineering group will ask us to put a lot of clicks on a new machine, or our sales force will request that we run proofs and samples on brand-new equipment," he remarks, noting that the shop presently runs the complete line of bizhub Pro equipment: 1050s, 6500s, 1200s, 920s and C500s. "And I don't have a problem with that." The shop also uses Konica Minolta's Print Groove for job tracking, invoicing, quote generation and inventory management.

In addition to handling the big-picture business side of the bizhub Image Center (Embury hired Mitzi Koninis, graphics designer and production supervisor, to run day-to-day operations), he also manages Office Services and, more recently, Community Relations.

"Community Relations is the most rewarding part of my job," he notes, explaining that he orchestrates donations by Konica Minolta to non-profit organizations, such as Alex's Lemonade Stand.

"And the toughest is the cafeteria [considered part of Office Services]," he jokes. "Everyone complains about food." Embury also serves on the board of directors of the Konica Minolta employees' credit union, and is a director on the board of Windsor's Chamber of Commerce.

Embury considers himself to be "one of the luckiest guys in the world," both in the office and at home. "We run one eight-hour shift, five days a week, and I can walk out of here, lock the doors with our equipment running, and come back the next day to completed jobs or machines that are filled to capacity," he declares. "I couldn't do that running offset. It's like having a ghost second shift.

"Most importantly, I have a wonderful wife and great sons," he concludes, noting that he hopes he has set a good example for his boys. "Sticking with one woman and one company all these years, I've tried to show them that there's something to be said for loyalty and longevity." IPG

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