Priming the Pump for Skilled Employees
Graphic arts scholarships seek to attract-and keep-young talent in a competitive communications industry.
By Mary Reinholz, Associate Editor -- graphic arts online, 1/1/2001
Printers often lament that there aren't enough skilled new employees to pump fresh blood into a mature business. Enter the scholarship providers-philanthropic organizations tapping donors who want to help young people earn degrees from accredited colleges, universities, and vocational schools that offer special programs in the graphic arts.
The 44-year-old Sewickley, Pa.-based Print and Graphics Scholarship Foundation (PGSF), which was known until last year as the National Scholarship Trust Fund of the Graphic Arts, is said to be the largest and oldest of these groups. Aligned with the Graphic Arts Technical Foundation (GATF), PGSF now has an endowment of $6.5 million, according to Lawrence C. Warter, Fuji Photo Film U.S.A. Inc. director of business opportunities, who also serves as PGSF's chairman.
"One of our members challenged us to double our endowment each year," says Warter. "We're behind on that, but we would like to make it $20 million to consolidate efforts that would bring kids into a graphic arts education.
"We've developed the technology that kids are enamored with today," he continues. "We've got to attract and convince them of the challenges of technology in our industry before we can start to hold our own with the likes of electronic media."
Vendor pledges
PGSF recently announced individual pledges of $100,000 toward endowed scholarships from contributors such as Heidelberg USA, Ink Systems, Time Inc., Westvaco Corporation, and its own former chairman John C. Wurst, chairman of Henry Wurst, Inc., Kansas City, Mo. It also announced grants for six graduate students ranging from $2,500 to $5,000 a year to defray expenses at academic institutions such as the California Polytechnic State University and the University of Wyoming.
Currently, 265 students have received grants totaling $303,000 for the 2000-2001 academic year. About 50 are first-time recipients, with undergraduates typically receiving $1,500 a year and graduate students $3,000, states PGSF program coordinator Kristin Winkowski.
"All the checks are made out to the school and not to the student," notes Winkowski, adding that the grant is renewable each semester so long as the student maintains a 3.0 grade point average.
Winkowski says that some of the PGSF scholarship students, who are chosen from among some 2,000 applicants each year, elect to attend two-year vocational schools. "But most of our scholarship recipients go to four-year schools," she explains, noting that they have to stay within the graphic arts field to remain eligible for funding assistance. "If they changed majors, we probably wouldn't be able to sponsor them."
Consolidating endowments
One of PGSF's major goals is to consolidate endowments from various industry sources, including affiliates of the Alexandria, Va.-based Printing Industries of America (PIA), which united with GATF in 1999.
In 1994, the Printing Industries Association of the Heartland, Kansas City, Mo., turned over its Ray and Anna Campbell Scholarship of about $30,000 to the national organization because, says the trade group's manager James Oldenbeken (successor to Ray Campell, who died last month), "it reduces the administrative costs here."
Anna Campbell notes that the scholarships give first preference to the children of employees in the local graphic arts industry.
Maintaining control
But other graphic arts organizations strongly resist the idea of merging their scholarship funds with any national entity.
"We see no reason to merge," states Bob Travers, chairman of the Printing & Publishing Council of New England (PPCNE), Reading, Mass., whose endowment of more than $2 million is believed to be the industry's largest regional scholarship fund in the United States. "You lose control over where the money goes if it moves to a large group," asserts Travers, who serves as a sales representative for Ris Paper in Woburn, Mass.
PPCNE's endowment yields about $100,000 in interest a year, according to Jim Hamilton, fundraiser for the group's New England Graphic Arts Scholarships, which were established in 1957. This money enables the group to annually offer about 25 new scholarships amounting to about $1,500 each for students who attend both two- and four-year institutions, including the Massachusetts College of Art and the Rhode Island School of Design.
Hamilton, a sales representative for Quebecor World Universal Press, Westwood, Mass., says that some of the scholarship students go to vocational schools where they "get enough skills to go directly into the industry, or to go to college for more training." Currently, there are 50 students under PPCNE's scholarships.
Meeting the criteria
All recipients, he says, can go to any school they want provided that it meets the criteria of the fund for majors in the graphic arts. Students also must demonstrate financial need in their applications and maintain a 2.5 grade point average each time they apply.
The organization's sponsors include The Boston Litho and Craftsmen's Club (which has its own scholarship fund), the Maine Graphic Arts Association, and the Printing Institute of New England, Southborough, Mass.
According to Hamilton, the group's volunteers took in about $42,000 last year in contributions from donors ranging from "people who own companies to an individual who left a charitable trust or bequest."
Hamilton also noted that applicants could apply to other scholarship funds. These students must live in New England but are not required to stay in the region once they finish school.
Sticking around.
In contrast, students who receive scholarships from the Minneapolis-based Printing Industry of Minnesota, Inc. not only must come from that state, but "they also have to give us a commitment that they will come back to Minnesota and work in this industry," says the group's president and chief executive Kel Johnson. The organization has a 10-year-old $600,000 endowment, the Printing Industry of Minnesota, Inc. Education Foundation Scholarship Fund. "Why should we give our money to someone who will work somewhere else?" he remarks.
Johnson's group also has what he calls a strategic alliance with the Dunwoody Institute, a two-year technical school located in Minneapolis. Dunwoody has its own endowment and subsidizes all students for about 55% of the cost of tuition, or roughly $6,600 a year.
Johnson says that he has no plans to merge this endowment with PGSF's. "Our industry is very localized with home-grown people who support causes in their community," he states. "It's easier to raise money for a local endowment than one that is national because they know what the money is being used for, and they see the results."
Niall Power, president and chief executive of the Printing Industries of Wisconsin, Elm Grove, Wis., says that his group also has an endowment of $600,000 and no desire to merge. The endowment-the Pagel Scholarship Foundation, named after a deceased local printer and his wife-offers 20 $1,000 scholarships for the coming year.
.and freedom to roam
"I want our scholarships to be used within Wisconsin, but I don't want to put a ball and chain on the students and say they have to stay here after they graduate," Power asserts, adding that he would even look favorably on awarding a scholarship to someone outside the state "because the important thing is that people find careers within our industry."
Not all industry officials believe newcomers need much beyond vocational training. Robert Lindgren, president of the Printing Industries Association, Inc. of Southern California, says that his Los Angeles-based group decided to stop contributing regularly to what is now PGSF after a "sea change" 13 years ago.
"We felt that our local industry was better served by strengthening local secondary and community educational programs than it was by buying scholarships for kids who went to the Rochester (N.Y.) Institute of Technology or California Polytechnic State University," he concludes.
