An Interview with America's Public Printer
Summary: You may not realize that every American President has the right to appoint an official Public Printer for the United States, who oversees one of the largest document creation and printing operations in the world.
You may not realize that every American President has the right to appoint an official Public Printer for the United States, who oversees one of the largest document creation and printing operations in the world.
For an interesting read into what the government is doing to become more digital and sustainable, mouse on over to the Print CEO Blog. There you’ll find an interesting interview with outgoing Public Printer, Robert C. Tapella, by sustainability guru Don Carli.
Tapella spoke about his three-year stint as the executive in charge of the Government Printing Office (GPO) in response to questions from Don Carli, senior research fellow at the Institute for Sustainable Communication (ISC). This group co-sponsored the June 28 program with NAPL at the midtown campus of New York University in an event hosted by the NYU’s School of Continuing and Professional Studies (SCPS).
Installed as Public Printer by the U.S. Senate in October 2007, Tapella soon will retire from the post upon the presumed confirmation of a successor nominated by the Obama administration. At the GPO, he oversees a printing and information distribution enterprise with a $1 billion budget and a workforce of 2,250.
Tapella said that the GPO, which consumes 3 million tons of paper per year, also procures $650 million worth of print from external vendors, making it second only to R.R. Donnelley as a buyer of printing services. Some of this consists of expenditures in what Tapella called a “convenience printing contract” with FedEx Kinko’s, which he said enables the agency to buy from the print center chain at discounts up to 70%.
GPO’s own printing plant is a 1.5 million sq. ft. facility with a mix of conventional and digital printing capabilities. Under Tapella, the GPO also has moved in a paperless direction with the ongoing development of FDsys, a Web-based system that provides electronic access to a wide range of authenticated government documents. It also operates GPO Access, providing free electronic access to information products produced by the federal government.
Tapella also said that the agency was about to release a new and “purely digital” version of the Federal Register, one of two periodicals that it produces for Congress (the other is the Congressional Record).
Doc is a bit surprised the government is so progressive, but very glad to hear we’re doing so much to be more sustainable.
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Doc
ZDNet introduces Doc (The DocuMentor), sponsored by RICOH. Through his blog, Doc will educate you about Document Management. So who is Doc? Doc is something of an enigma. He was born to a Russian ballerina and a German electrical engineer who some believe was running covert operations for shadowy corporate interests. Doc grew up in various locations in the United States, although no one seems to know precisely where, least of all Doc. His early schooling was unremarkable except for the time he was caught trying to replace all the mimeograph machines with high-tech color copiers that had mysteriously disappeared from a shipment to Albania. At MIT, he made a name for himself by transforming a large printer into a robot that hunts and eats Roombas. Professionally, he reportedly has seen the insides of more brands, versions, and generations of printer and printer-related hardware than almost anyone. Some say his obsession with paper, printing, and mechanical movement was either started by, or evidenced by, a traumatic childhood episode when he crawled inside an old Xerox 2400 and tried to print himself.
Anyway, Doc has hands on experience with stuff like printer maintenance and fleet management, but his mastery of document management leaves no stone unturned. Important issues like sustainability, security, and regulatory compliance are top of mind for Doc, as are other business technology needs like networking and IT services, making him a true blue IT renaissance man.
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