Some printers target business-to-business (B2B) customers. St. Joseph Press (LaGrange Park, IL) serves a more specialized B2B niche: religious to religious (R2R). Founded in 2004, the shop produces calendars, prayer and greeting cards, art prints, bookmarks and marketing materials as well as jobs for other religious organizations and non-profits.

  As part of the Sisters of St. Joseph, the year-and-a-half-old St. Joseph Press can claim a rich history. Founded in LePuy, France, in 1650, the Sisters of St. Joseph came to the United States in 1836 to teach deaf children in Carondelet, MO. Today, there are approximately 30,000 Sisters of St. Joseph on four continents, including 7,000 in 23 congregations located throughout the United States. Established in 1899, the LaGrange Park congregation currently numbers 94 nuns.

  Serving the community for more than a century

  In addition to St. Joseph Press, the Sisters of St. Joseph also run Nazareth Academy, a Catholic high school founded in 1900. Other activities include:

  * Ministry of the Arts (religious sculpture, art work, cards and jewelry sold through a catalog and gift shop).

  * A spirituality center.

  * School on Wheels, a custom fitted bus that serves as a mobile classroom where tutors teach English literacy to adult immigrants.

  * A hermitage retreat center.

  * Campaigns for global justice and socially responsive investments.

  Counting blessings (and greeting cards)

  An unlikely COO

  As fewer Catholic women are becoming nuns, the Sisters of St. Joseph抯 retirees soon will outnumber active members. Moreover, lacking younger sisters to fill the jobs, the congregation is outsourcing more teaching and administrative positions. Traditionally, for example, a nun has served as the congregation抯 finance director. More recently, the Sisters have had lay finance directors. But after its finance director and treasurer passed away several years ago, there was no one within the congregation qualified to replace them. So the Sisters of St. Joseph hired Ed Sutoris to fill the post. Sutoris is their first COO.

  揧ou get drawn in,?says Sutoris. He first started working with the Sisters of St. Joseph about five years ago when their 48-year-old finance director died suddenly. Sutoris, who has a Masters of Engineering Management from Northwestern and an extensive background in computer sales, says the COO job抯 modest salary didn抰 deter him. 揑t抯 a chance to give back,?he explains.

  According to Sutoris, cost control issues were the genesis of the Sisters of St. Joseph抯 printing operation. 揥e asked ourselves how we could reduce the cost of goods to the Ministry of the Arts while increasing its profitability to the congregation,?explains Sutoris. 揥e said, 慦hat if we printed [everything] ourselves?挃

  While it was impractical for the Sisters to produce the 250,000-run, 28-page Ministry of the Arts catalog in-house, Sutoris thought many catalog items, such as note cards and art prints, were excellent applications for an internal print operation. He created a business plan, and after months of discussion, the sisters?Leadership Council, a group of five nuns that serves as the congregation抯 board of directors, approved it. Sutoris then began investigating equipment options. Originally, he considered an offset press. 揑t was overwhelming,?he recalls. 揥e don抰 have a background in that and there were a lot of environmental and other issues.?

  One day, while glancing at his office inkjet printer, Sutoris had an epiphany. 揑sn抰 there something like that, only bigger, that would work for us??he wondered. Sutoris considered a NexPress and iGen3, but ultimately determined an HP 1000 was the best fit.

  HP arranged for Sutoris to tour another customer site: Alpha Beta (Tinley Park, IL), a full-service commercial printer that has two HP Indigo 3000s as well as one half-size and two 40-inch Mitsubishi presses. Tompkins (Schiller Park, IL), an equipment dealer, provided a lot of postpress advice. Other key resources include distributor xpedx and paper supplier Bradner Smith.

  A nun-run pressroom

  The press was installed in January 2004. The goal was to have a nun run it, but Sister Judy, the designated operator, wouldn抰 be available until school was out for the year. So a local graphic designer, Joe Wood, filled in while Sister Judy wrapped up her teaching career at St. Francis Xavier抯 in LaGrange, IL. Although Sister Judy had spent 41 years as an elementary school teacher and principal, she had little time to reflect on her old career before embarking on a new one. 揝chool got out on a Friday,recalls Sister Judy. 揑 left immediately for a two-week training workshop in Littleton, MA. I took over running the press on June 18, just in time for the Christmas rush.

 
  Six months later, Sister Judy went to Boise, ID, for a training session on press maintenance. 揟here were four HP technicians, one lifelong printer, an industry expert and me,?she recalls. 揑 was at the bottom of the class, a place I had never been.?

 
  Ultimately, Sister Judy found that running the press was fairly easy. The real challenge lay in coping with paper static and humidity issues as well as a job printed on stock that was too thick for mechanical folding. 揥e folded 15,000 cards by hand,?she recalls.

  These days, if she has a question or problem running the press, Sister Judy knows she can rely on her Boise contacts. 揑t makes a difference knowing [them],she says.
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