2012 Hall of Fame: Volker Petersen - Smooth Sailing to Success

While magazine advertising pages have been drastically reduced and many publishers have witnessed the sometimes-drastic declines of their circulation base, Brown Printing has managed to grow. It posted sales of $421 million according to its most recent fiscal year sales, or 8 percent growth over the previous campaign.

"The challenge is to find the right balance to satisfying the needs of customers, employees and shareholders," Petersen notes. "The past five years have made that focus even more important. Because the market is shrinking, you have to figure out how you can gain share to remain relevant and successful in a changing landscape."

Silver Anniversary on the Horizon

Petersen is all too familiar with operating under difficult circumstances; challenges confronted the firm almost from the day he interviewed with Brown Printing, which is owned by Gruner + Jahr of Hamburg, Germany. Next April, in fact, will mark his 25th anniversary with the company.

Printing wasn't on Petersen's radar when he earned a degree in mechanical engineering from the Hamburg University of Applied Sciences in 1984. Wanting to discover a world outside of Germany, he attended Iowa State and received an MS degree and PhD in industrial engineering in 1988.

"When I came to the states, I wanted to get another perspective on life, to see what life in other cultures was like," Petersen notes. Ironically, he would interview with a German firm, then take a job based in the states.

Petersen's final interview with Brown Printing almost didn't happen. He'd flown out to the West Coast, where the printing company operated a retail insert division. He was met by a plant manager who told Petersen that he'd have to fly to Brown's headquarters in Waseca, MN. The person who was going to interview Petersen was unavoidably detained, and for good reason. The roof had caved in at the headquarters, killing two workers.