It’s a digital age, right? How could a career in printing be plausible? You might be surprised to see how today’s printing has changed behind the scenes in a digital world.
Employees from Nahan, a local printing company, recently visited with South Junior High sixth grade students to help promote career and tech ed [CTE] jobs.
The St.Cloud Area School District has an extensive career and tech ed program including: business and marketing, family and consumer science, health, tech ed, work experience and YouthBuild. There are over 40 different internships available to high school students within the district.
Nahan is partnering with the St. Cloud Area School District to help kick-start the graphic designing portion of their technology education class with Maureen Proell, a technology education teacher at South.
Students are able to get a glance at the interior of Nahan through a video. The video features the printing process, the presses, how images are digitally etched on aluminum sheets and the pressmen running the machinery. One press in particular is two stories high and is as long as the entire length of South Junior High.
Engineers, electricians, robotics, oh my! Graphics, marketing, data processing: every single one of them is needed in the printing business. It’s starting to sound like the wave of the future!
Scott Andres, supervisor of preproduction at Nahan, says “It’s been very interesting. There are a lot of different levels of interest.”
One student comment sticks out in particular.
“One student, when looking through the loop, [a type of magnifying tool] was able to identify that there wasn’t a dot in the middle of the ink pattern. I can’t believe he caught that. He was right. That particular [publication] piece was done with a different style of printing. We didn’t even discuss that today!” says Andres.
“Do you know if you ever have a paper jam when your making booklets?” asks a another student.
Andres and Jennifer Blackmore, a technology support analyst, explain to the class, that they know right away when a press jams because it has a resounding boom that echoes throughout the entire building.
Then the discussion begins to veer toward topics of careers. The students learn that it is usually a two year degree for graphics and designers, a four year degree for the programmers and engineers and a high school diploma for the press and manufacturing.
Proell states, “A graphic designer makes about $55,000 thousand a year.”
The students ooh and aah.
“That’s a lot of money!” exclaims one.
“A lot of people are coming back to print,”Andres assures them.
Blackmore adds, “It [print] is something tangible that they can hold on to at home versus just deleting or overlooking an electronic notification.”
It appears as though the printing business has a place in the digital age, and it just may include these bright sixth graders.