Jack Mondin

First the question: Who holds the record for appearing on the most IPG covers? Here are the choices: -Jean-Luc Devis -Mike Loyd -West Barton -Bob Slaughter -Rick Wise Answer: This was a trick question. But since we’re not giving out prizes, who really cares, right? There are actually TWO correct answers. Mike Loyd and West Barton have both appeared four times on our cover. And I should add, this was my decision, not theirs, lest you think there was some ego involved. There have been several three-timers, too: Rodney Brown, Rick Wise, Bob Slaughter, Carol Doffing-Kraft and Ralph Sperrazza. The list

The festive mood of the awards banquet at the recent International Publishing Management Association conference was disrupted by the slowly spreading news that USAA, a San Antonio-based insurance financial services association, has decided to close its substantial in-house offset operation and outsource all printing. The news came as a blow to in-plants everywhere. USAA Publishing Services was one of the country's largest in-plants. With a $38 million budget, it ranked fifth on the most recent IPG Top 50 list and employed 305 people. The company plans to lay off 175 of those people as of August 20, with another 75 to be shown

Competition among insurance companies is fueling marketing efforts, forcing in-plants to turn out more four-color work than ever. Insurance is a huge market. Its providers make up a major portion of Fortune magazine's annual Fortune 500 listing, with giants like State Farm and Prudential ranking in the top 20. Behemoths like these know how important quality marketing materials are to their businesses, and many of them turn to their in-plants to get them. Because of the competition among insurance firms, these materials must be eye-catching and colorful, a fact that is bringing more color printing work into these in-plants. "Color will sell things

USAA San Antonio, Texas Annual Sales/Budget: $38 million Full-time employees: 305 Jobs printed per year: 36,000 For the employees at USAA Publishing Services, an increased workload is to be expected. The customer base, which stands at over 3.5 million people, grows by up to eight percent annually. But with a cap on the number of employees at the shop since 1992, that increase in work must be handled by the current staff. "We expect capacity to increase with our volume growth but expect staffing to remain constant," explains Jack Mondin, executive director of publishing output services. "That means...we cannot continue to do business the way we have

Though in-plant managers aren't ready to abandon their offset presses yet, they say the process needs to change to compete with digital printing. As print runs get smaller and clients learn to accept digital print quality, why should in-plants bother to stay in the offset business at all? That's a question many managers are pondering as the world continues to race into the digital age. Already several in-plants have dumped offset altogether after finding that high-speed digital printers can handle their work more cost effectively. Still, most in-plants have no intention of giving up their presses entirely. They've paid for them and they

USAA San Antonio, Texas With a customer base of more than 3.5 million people—a figure that grows every year at a rate of 6 to 8 percent—the USAA in-plant in San Antonio, Texas, is kept busy on a daily basis. This insurance and financial services company's in-plant department was founded about 40 years ago to primarily print business forms and declaration pages for automobile policies. Today, the operation boasts a 40,000-square-foot facility and averages 36,000 jobs per year—a figure that is expected to grow annually, according to Jack Mondin, executive director of publishing output services. Despite this anticipated growth, Mondin put some pressure