Tom Neckvatal

After 32 years with Securian Financial Group, Tom Neckvatal has retired as director of Graphic Services. To take over the reigns of the 46-employee, $6.5 million operation, the St. Paul, Minn.-based company has hired Mike Wolfgang, former director of digital print systems at CGS Publishing Technologies International in Minneapolis.

One of the country's most successful insurance company in-plants, Graphics Services at Securian Financial Group (formerly Minnesota Life) has also mastered the art of insourcing. By Debora Toth What printing company would not envy a shop that has a solid customer base providing it with capital for new equipment? The Graphic Services division of Securian Financial Group is one such shop. The 43-employee in-plant—which ranked fourth among insurance company in-plants on the 2004 In-Plant Graphics Top 50—can be easily envied for its strong partnership with its parent company (formerly known as Minnesota Life) and the successful growth of its insourcing business. "There are a

For a week in mid-June, Salt Lake City was the in-plant capital of the country. You could hardly walk down South Main Street without bumping into another in-plant manager. Utah's capital played host to the 44th annual International Publishing Management Association conference, a much-anticipated event among in-plants. I was fortunate enough to be able to attend. Amazingly (to me) this was my ninth IPMA conference, so by now nearly everyone in the organization seems like an old friend. Salt Lake City was an appropriate location for the gathering because it's a great city for in-plants. Anchored by two of the country's largest—the Church

What's all this about digital? To a lot of managers, offset is still the biggest wave of the future. by Mike Llewellyn IT SEEMS like all anyone can talk about lately is variable data printing. Equipment manufacturers, conference speakers and even in-plant managers have been loudly praising its virtues. But does that mean the sound of cranking offset presses is soon to fade into memory? Not if you ask Tom Neckvatal, manager of Minnesota Life Insurance Printing Services. His operation is proof that when the going gets tough, the tough run offset. The print runs streaming out of the 54-employee in-plant's offset press area

Insourcing has brought in new business for many Top 50 in-plants. Fifty-four percent of the Top 50 are doing it. The benefits are clear. by MIKE LLEWELLYN AS PARENT organizations across the board spend less on printing, some in-plants are looking beyond their primary client. Fifty-four percent of the Top 50 in-plants are insourcing work from customers other than their parent organizations. (See list on page 18.) They are bringing in hundreds of thousands—even millions—of dollars in revenue, even in these tough times. For many, this revenue plays a large part in their success, and helps keep them on the Top 50. At Minnesota

By replacing older stitching and binding equipment with new models, in-plants are bringing new business into their shops. by Bob Neubauer It wasn't the automation. It wasn't the ease of use, either. No, the biggest benefit the Heidelberg ST 90 saddle stitcher brought to Minnesota Life Graphic Services was new business, according to manager Tom Neckvatal. "It opened up the doors for us to do work we couldn't do before," he says. With the ST 90, the in-plant could saddle stitch 96-page books, plus covers. This meant jobs like annual reports, catalogs and manuals were now well within the capabilities of the

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