Worzalla, an employee-owned company specializing in printing high-quality children’s books, movie tie-in books and cookbooks, hosted its second annual month-long event titled “WorzallaPalooza” to show appreciation to its associates. Throughout the month of July, Worzalla offered daily giveaways, including several grand prize packages. “WorzallaPalooza is one of Worzalla’s ways of thanking our employee owners and it’s great to see everyone come together to celebrate the contributions we each make,” said Brianne Petruzalek, Worzalla Vice President of Human Resources. “We were excited to do daily giveaways again this year along with a BBQ lunch for all team members.” In addition to each associate receiving a $20 Kwik Trip gift card and appreciation lunch catered by Smokehouse BBQ, every day in July featured a unique giveaway opportunity for Worzalla associates, including drawings for $25 to $500 gift cards from Fleet Farm, Target, Amazon as well as Portage County Business Council gift certificates to support local businesses. Three grand prize packages were awarded to Worzalla associates, including Wil Smith and Duane Kieliszewski.

Blackford Capital is excited to announce Aaron Day as CEO of Dickinson and its parent company, "Printing Consolidation Company" (PCC). Dickinson is the first company within PCC, specializing in the religious book printing services industry. After acquiring Dickinson in 2015, Blackford Capital realized it would need an industry seasoned CEO to run the company and continue its acquisitions efforts. "With the addition of Aaron Day as CEO of Dickinson and PCC, we are poised to recruit industry leading talent and complete acquisitions in our core Book Printing segment," said Stephen Parker, chairman of Dickinson. "We are pursuing companies with a focus in the book industry and with Aaron's leadership background over the past 25 years, we now have the experience to accelerate our M&A growth strategy," said James Cook, Associate at Blackford Capital. Before joining the company, Day served as CEO of Trend Offset Printing, a commercial printing company, headquartered in Los Alamitos, Calif. After securing Aaron Day as CEO, Blackford Capital hired John Ruther as CFO. Ruther joins after leading The Ruther Group, an international management consulting firm based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Ruther brings decades of experience leading large manufacturing companies in a financial and operational capacity. Click Read More below for more of the story.

North America’s newest high-speed web offset press doesn’t have a gas dryer. Thanks to a pioneering purchase by Bradford & Bigelow of a Manroland Goss Lithoman IV press equipped with an advanced LED-curing system from Baldwin Technology’s AMS Spectral UV brand. This combination of companies has brought a new leading edge to the high-speed web offset market. Bradford & Bigelow, based in Newburyport, Massachusetts, is one of North America’s leading printers of 8.5 x 11-inch textbooks and workbooks used for K-12 education. The new press is its second Lithoman. According to the printer, after producing books for years on a Lithoman, it was an easy decision for B&B to choose another Manroland Goss press. B&B has been a pioneer in the use of UV inks. Several years ago, the printer converted its sheetfed and Timsons web presses to AMS Spectral UV’s LED UV ink technology successfully. However, the technology had not been perfected for higher-speed webs like the Manroland Goss that run north of 30,000 impressions per hour.