Public Printer Charts Future Course of GPO
WASHINGTON, DC—Appearing before the House Legislative Appropriations Subcommittee recently, U.S. Public Printer Bruce R. James laid out the future of the Government Printing Office (GPO).
"I intend to do my best to uphold the tradition of the office while providing the leadership to guide the GPO into a new era, to ensure that it remains as relevant and necessary to the information needs of Congress, federal agencies and the public in the 21st century as it was for the first 140 years of its existence," said James during his funding request for fiscal year 2004.
"I have begun to carry out that promise," noted James, citing major changes in GPO's organization, training policy, employee communications, work force restructuring, customer service, strategic and contingency planning, and technology review.
Pointing to the declining volume of printing handled by the GPO and the growing workload in electronic information databases, he vowed to lead the transformation of the GPO into a cutting-edge enterprise designed to "capture digitally, organize, maintain, authenticate, distribute and provide permanent public access to the information products and services of the federal government."
For the annual congressional printing and binding appropriation, the GPO is requesting an increase of 1.7 percent over current year funding to fully cover Congress' legislative printing needs, including the Congressional Record, bills, reports, hearings, documents and related products required for the legislative process.
For the salaries and expenses appropriation of the superintendent of documents, which covers the Federal Depository Library Program, GPO Access and other government information dissemination programs, the GPO is asking for an increase of 3 percent to cover mandatory pay and benefits increases, as well as price level changes.
For the salaries and expenses appropriation, James cited the need for $4.1 million to replace obsolete technology used by the GPO Access system by upgrading its search and retrieval system, now nearly a decade old.
He also requested $10 million to cover the costs of a retirement incentive program to enable the GPO to manage the size, composition and skills of its work force as required by rapidly changing technology. This buyout program, implemented in April, is reportedly designed to reduce the work force by 300 positions and generate annual savings of $18 million.
Public Printer Names New GPO Leadership
WASHINGTON, DC—William H. Turri has been named deputy public printer, the second-highest position within the U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO). As deputy public printer, Turri will serve as COO of the GPO, responsible for overseeing its day-to-day printing, print procurement and information dissemination operations.
Turri comes to the GPO following a lifelong career in the printing industry. He has served as COO of Monroe Litho, where he later served as president from 1993 to 1995. In 1995, he was named president of Case-Hoyt and became a member of its board of directors, retiring in 2001.
Turri succeeds George A. Taylor, who is leaving the GPO to spend more time with his family.
Bruce R. James, public printer of the United States, has also announced four other appointments to the new organizational structure of the GPO.
James C. Bradley has been named managing director of customer services. Previously, Bradley directed the GPO's former customer services operation from 1997 to 2003. He came to the GPO from the Joint Committee on Printing.
Robert E. Schwenk is now managing director of plant operations. Schwenk is a graduate of the GPO's apprentice program. He rose through the ranks to become superintendent of the GPO's electronic photocomposition division. For the past four months, he served as acting production manager for the GPO, directing all plant operations.
William L. Boesch Jr. has been named comptroller. Boesch is the fourth generation of his family to work in the printing industry. He came to GPO in 1979 as a systems accountant. In 1982, he was made chief of the General Ledger and Property Section and in 1985 he was promoted to chief of the General Accounting Branch.
Richard G. (Ric) Davis, an 11-year veteran of the GPO has been named director of the Office of Electronic Information Dissemination Services (EIDS) at GPO. Davis began his GPO career in 1992 as a program analyst in GPO's Technical Support Group. In 1994, he joined the GPO Library Programs Service as a management analyst, and then went on to head the Electronic Transition Staff.
In 1996, he joined EIDS as the product services manager. He was named assistant director of EIDS in 2001.
- People:
- James C. Bradley
- Places:
- United States
- Washington, DC