One Big Ink Spot. Charleston Gazette Focuses on Print Industry Plans for West Virginia.




May 16, 2006
One big ink spot

Developers pitch Kanawha Valley as print industry hub


By Eric Eyre
Staff writer
Photo's by Lawrence Pierce

They already have a catchy slogan: “Charleston, West Virginia. We have ink on our hands.”

State and local economic development leaders are trying to sell the Kanawha Valley as a potential hub for the growing print industry.

The Charleston Area Alliance, state Development Office and West Virginia University Institute of Technology have teamed up to lure printing companies here.

“We’re trying to brand ourselves for the print industry,” said Matt Ballard, a business recruiter for the Alliance’s development group. “The reality is there’s no true center for the print industry in the U.S.”

But Charleston could be it.

There’s a state university nearby with one of the top printing programs in the nation.

And printed products — books, magazines, shopping guides, advertising inserts, food labels — could be shipped from Charleston to 60 percent of the United States and 30 percent of Canada in a single day.

Two weeks ago, Ballard joined WVU Tech professor Jack Nuckols and other Charleston economic development leaders at a conference in Louisville, Ky., where they promoted the Valley as a potential site for printing businesses.

The conference was hosted by the Flexographic Technical Association, an industry group made up of companies that primarily manufacture labels through a process called flexographic printing.

Nearly 80 percent of all consumer products have labels with flexographic print. Some newspapers also use the process.

“It’s the most widely expanding part of the industry,” said Nuckols, who heads the print degree program at Tech in Montgomery. “You can’t sell a food product without a proper label on it to tell people what’s inside.”

Tech recently bought a flexographic printer after getting a $192,000 grant from the West Virginia Development Office. Tech students already are training on the printer.

The college plans to lease the printer to start-up companies. Print industry workers also would come to the university and get training on the printer.

Tech, which has offered a print management degree since 1948, already trains students and workers from throughout the United States on its Goss International Corp. newspaper press.

At the Louisville conference, Nuckols ran into many Tech grads, some of whom work as executives in the print industry. Ballard and Nuckols hope that Tech alumni will return to West Virginia and start a printing business or open a satellite manufacturing plant.

“The idea is to attract people from all over the U.S. and

try to convince them to establish a business here,” Nuckols said. “Maybe a West Coast company would want to come here.”

West Virginia’s Eastern Panhandle and the nearby Virginia suburbs of Washington already have become a small hub for the print industry, Nuckols said.

Martinsburg-based Quad Graphics, which has 1,110 workers, prints National Geographic magazine, the Victoria’s Secret catalogs and Kmart advertising inserts.

Nearby are two book manufacturers: Virginia-based Berryville Graphics, which has about 850 employees, and Quebecor World, a Canadian company with about 400 workers in Martinsburg.

Nuckols estimates that more than 3,000 people work in the print industry within a 50-mile radius of Martinsburg.

By the end of the year, Tech plans to open a National Publishing Innovation Center, which will include an ink-testing lab, distance learning auditorium and a press operation computer simulation lab. Major newspaper chains have donated more than $500,000 to the center.

Rep. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., presented a $300,000 check to the university Monday. The federal money will be used to fund interior construction.

The printing industry remains strong, Nuckols said, even though some consumers have drifted away from magazines and newspapers to the Internet.

There are about 30,700 printing companies in the United States, accounting for $112 billion in business, according to the 2006 “U.S. Industry & Market Outlook” report by the Barnes Reports market researchers.

Ballard and Nuckols want to bring the flexographic printing conference to Charleston in 2009 — “to show West Virginia to the world,” Nuckols said. By then, they hope several small printing businesses will be up and running in the Valley.

“It’s a wonderful opportunity for West Virginia to become a leader in the print industry,” he said.

To contact staff writer Eric Eyre, use e-mail or call 348-4869.

A publishing industry resource center on Tech’s campus, featuring a distance-learning auditorium and computer simulation lab, is to open this year.