Liebert, Pierce, Budington, DeLana Entering HOF

PHILADELPHIA—The 30th installation of the Printing Impressions/RIT Printing Industry Hall of Fame will take place on Monday evening, Sept. 29, during the Hall of Fame & Gold Ink Awards Gala at the Hyatt Regency McCormick Place in Chicago.

Held during GRAPH EXPO 14, the Printing Industry Hall of Fame is co-sponsored by the Rochester Institute of Technology School of Media Sciences. The annual event also honors the winners of the Gold Ink Awards printing contest.

This year's induction class consists of the following printing industry executives: Jon Budington, CEO of Global Printing in Alexandria, VA; David DeLana, president of Heritage—The Integrated Resource of El Reno, OK; Marty Liebert, founder, president and CEO of Freedom Graphic Systems in Milton, WI; and Chris Pierce, chairman of The Dingley Press in Lisbon, ME.

• Jon Budington has spent his entire 23-year career at Global Printing, which he joined upon graduating from Rochester Institute of Technology in 1991. He quickly moved through the organization, holding a variety of duties, including estimator, copy office manager, president and, in 2001, CEO. Budington took the helm just as the country hit a recession in 2001 and Global lost 30 percent of its revenue, but he worked quickly to implement cost-cutting initiatives, evaluated the company's customer list and sought out new technologies in order to leverage existing relationships.

In 2004, the company launched Global Thinking, a strategic agency to help get the company in front of key executives and get involved earlier in projects. It helped launch the company into a growth spurt that enabled it to increase revenues from $4 million in 2004 to $16 million in 2011. Budington is still active with RIT; in addition to lecturing, he has joined the President's Roundtable. On the Printing Industries of America side, Budington has worked with the association's bonus depreciation lobbying group.

• It was an accident of fate that David DeLana found the printing industry, but his success in transitioning Heritage—The Integrated Resource from a local print shop to a national provider of sheetfed and digital printing was certainly no fluke. The company survived the oil bust of the 1980s and made great strides by investing in fulfillment and adding promotional products. But perhaps DeLana's biggest move was in adding variable data digital printing and implementing B2B Websites for its customers. Today, its clients' Websites serve 6,500 individual locations.

DeLana served two terms as chairman of what is now PIA MidAmerica, and has chaired the PIA national board. DeLana has sat on several national and local affiliate committees; he currently works with the national's finance committee and government affairs. He was inducted into the Ben Franklin Honor Society in 2008 and garnered the 2013 Lewis Memorial Lifetime Achievement Award.

• Maybe Marty Liebert thought he had a shot at succeeding in the printing industry, but he certainly was tired of getting shot at (with a shotgun) in the collections business for an insurance company. Not long after his collections career ended, Liebert tried becoming a retail store manager and training manager. It wasn't until he partnered with five of his clients to launch Freedom Graphic Systems in 1986 that Liebert discovered his true calling.

In less than 30 years in business, Liebert has toiled tirelessly to build his direct mail empire to the $145 million plateau. In fact, it only took 18 months for his company to recover from the Great Recession of 2008. Along the way, Liebert strengthened his company's value proposition by bringing most of the company's production needs in-house, and opened facilities across the country in order to deliver mail deeper into the stream in a more timelier fashion. He bought out all of his shareholders by 2002. Liebert's oldest son, Scott, is employed at Freedom Graphic Systems.

• Chris Pierce saw enough potential in The Dingley Press that he purchased the company not once, but twice. He took it over in 1981, when it had odd-sized equipment and no prospects. But the Bowdoin College graduate grew the firm from 30 employees and $300,000 in sales to the $100 million mark and more than 500 employees. In one stretch, the company enjoyed 24 consecutive years of annual sales growth.

Pierce sold the company to The Sheridan Group in 2004 and remained with the firm until 2011. After trying his hand at another project, Pierce found that he missed being on a team—specifically, The Dingley Press team—and that he missed interacting with the employees. Pierce reacquired the company in the fall of 2013.

Advance registration for the Sept. 29 gala event is required. For more information on attending, contact Mike Cooper at (215) 238-5434 or e-mail mcooper@napco.com .