Wielding the Power of a Production Manager

Within the past week at RIT, I obtained a position that I have been seeking for over two years. I was hired as Production Manager for the only student produced, 32-page, weekly color college news magazine in the United States. In this blog I would like to share with you what the Reporter magazine is, how I will manage print on the Goss Sunday 2000 and my thoughts on the industry pertaining to technology and providing customers with cutting-edge print services.

Reporter delivers on- and off-campus news, features, entertainment and sports coverage to the RIT community every Friday morning with a circulation of 6,000. A winner of numerous state and national awards, it is highly-regarded as one of the nation’s most innovative college publications, respected for its high quality of writing, photography, illustration, design and printing.

Through my time interning at Advanced Web and GLS before coming to RIT, I gained a great deal of hands on experience through every aspect of the print production workflow. I worked throughout prepress, was a press assistant on both a Heidelberg CD 102 and Komori web press and spent time in bindery. After attending production meetings each morning with the managers of each department, I knew that production management was an area I was well suited for and possessed a great amount of interest in.

What excites me most about this job is managing print that is being run on the Goss Sunday 2000 web press. There is a great deal of work that goes into being production manager and I have loved every minute of it. My duties include strategic print production planning, attending press runs, coordination of special projects, communication between art staff, editorial staff and outside vendors and planning and development for distribution and circulation.

My ultimate goal within this position is to make the entire student body at RIT aware of print and appreciate it in ways they never thought were possible. By utilizing industry leading equipment and technology along with creativity, I know I can achieve this goal.