Lane Press celebrates 100 years of quality printing from northern Vermont
By Jane Peters
The old adage “The mighty oak from a tiny acorn, grew,” is very appropriate when describing Lane Press. A printer that started as a small shop on the second floor of a wooden building is now a leading web printing company that occupies a modern 200,000-square foot building in South Burlington. Today Lane Press anchors Vermont's and New England's printing industry.

Lane Press is one of Vermont’s largest privately-owned businesses. The company employs more than 325 people and is the seventh largest manufacturing employer in the state. The company ranks 11th largest manufacturer by revenue.

The remnants of a Boston letterpress shop
A trip back in time to 1904 would show that Frank Lane, the company founder, acquired the remains of a defunct printing business in Boston. Lane moved the equipment north to Burlington, Vt., where he began business as Lane Press, a small letterpress operation. Six years later, he expanded into bigger quarters at 186 Main Street.

His son Ben started working at the shop when he was eight years old. He ran errands, helped clean up, took out the stove ashes and brought in coal from the lean-to shed. It was only natural that he would someday fill his father’s shoes. Ben, in his early 20s, took over the company and its 12 employees. Known as a “job shop,” Lane Press printed invoices, pamphlets, posters, and other items for area businesses.

In 1924, Ben incorporated the business into The Lane Press, Inc. He was elected president on Sept. 22, 1928, and served with the additional title of general manager for the next 33 years. During that period, he slowly added equipment, and expanded the payroll as sales grew.

Steady growth required another move in 1930, and yet another to the Kilburn Gates Building in 1936. An old mill made an ideal home for a growing printing company.

He guided the company through the war years of the 1940s and the booming 1950s, when American technological marvel brought prosperity and an improved quality of life to the cities, the growing suburbs, and communities like Burlington that served as the economic hub for rural regions isolated from large metropolitan areas.

Ben enjoyed three decades as owner. He sold the company in 1959 to Oscar Drumheller, the company treasurer, who had started at Lane Press only two years earlier. After the transfer of ownership, Ben continued to work at the company for two more years until he retired in September 1961. Ben and Oscar worked side by side for four years to nourish the printing enterprise and position it for future growth. Upon Ben’s retirement, Oscar took the title of president and general manager.

The printing company continued to operate from the St. Paul Street headquarters throughout Oscar’s tenure. The company more than doubled in size — both in terms of employees and gross annual sales — during Oscar Drumheller’s 22-year tenure.

Lane Press moved to its present facility in neighboring South Burlington in 1987, four years after Oscar turned over the company leadership to his sons Tom, Dan, and Philip. Today Philip serves as president of the company.

“As president of Lane Press, I am a steward of the legacy left by my father who was known for his sharp business mind and Ben Lane who was known for quality. The guiding principles of these two men have given us the tools to succeed for more than 100 years,” said Philip Drumheller. “These principles, coupled with our focus on helping our customers succeed as magazine publishers, will guide us through the next century and beyond.”

Facing the challenges of change
Lane Press, like other printing companies that have stood the test of time, learned to make the most technological changes by incorporating change when it was proven and beneficial to its customers. The use of desktop publishing software and the Internet have turned out to be an opportunity for the printing industry. Printers that embrace technology can offer new services, provide greater efficiencies in the production workflow, and better serve their clients.

“We have found that technology improvements, including the widespread growth of the Internet, are complementary to printing often contributing to greater demand for the information distribution solutions we offer,” said Tracey Moran, marketing manager at Lane Press.

Technology has caused changes in printing. Some are major; some have occurred quietly. For example, many employees have had to learn new skills. In the prepress area, Lane Press once had 100 employees. Now, because of a shift from film to computer-to-plate technology, the number of employees in prepress has been reduced to 40. Of the three divisions — prepress, press, and bindery — the largest number of employees are in the bindery.

The core of the business
Lane Press has long been known as a technology leader in publication printing. Their strategy is to incorporate technology when it is proven to add value to the print process. The current focus is on electronic information distribution so that customers’ files can be published in print or on the web.

But more than anything, the company’s focus on service excellence and high quality printing makes Lane Press an attractive vendor to 250 magazines nationwide.

It has developed its own specialty magazines publication niche.

According to Moran “We print more alumni magazines than any other printer in the country” (about 120 academic magazines). “One of the ways that technology has helped is that we can supplement the capabilities of a small production staff with our extensive offerings in the prepress area,” Moran said. “We have been transitioning customers from providing native files to PDF files, often helping our customers to save time and money in the process.”

The company is well known for regional publications, such as Vermont Life and Oklahoma Today, trade association magazines, such as American Scientist and ASHRAE, as well as the quality-focused niche publications ARTnews and Opera News.

“The number of magazine titles has grown steadily over the years. The industry is seeing that mail order companies are still printing the same amount of catalogues, but they are using technology to target audiences more specifically and more effectively. Despite challenging economic conditions and shifts in technology, Lane Press has maintained its customer base and added new lines of services to help its publishers succeed,” she said.

Vermont’s largest printer
Today, Lane Press is among the largest privately held publications printers in North America. The company specializes in printing short to medium-run magazines, custom publications, and catalogs. The company has a complete prepress department that provides high resolution scanning, operates on both Mac and PC production platforms, provides image manipulation, file conversion, in RIP trapping, digital imposition, and computer-to-plate (CTP) production through the use of two Creo Platesetter 3244 units, extensive preflight capability, digital proofing, electronic data transport, electronic file archiving, on-site technical support for clients, and more.

Its pressroom horsepower is made up of four full-color heatset web presses, a Heidelberg/Harris M600, a Harris M-90, a Hantscho Mark VIA, and a Hantscho Mark VI that can produce five to eight-color publications with eight to 32-page production formats. There are combination and double former folders, and additional features such as varnish, ultraviolet and film laminate coatings to augment its web printing capability. Two Heidelberg sheetfed presses round out Lane’s printing capability. The fully outfitted bindery and finishing department includes two Muller Martini 335 saddle stitchers, and a Muller Martini 300 saddle stitcher. All three pieces give Lane Press multiple inserter lines, blow-in card feeders, folder signature feeders and more.

There are Polar Cutters, one a 36 by 36-inch size and one a 45 by 45-inch size. There is a Stahl folder capable of handing sheets up to 26 by 40 inches in size. There is also a Challenge three-hole drill, a Kolbus Alliance Perfect Binder and a Kolbus Ratio binder. Lane Press also has extensive off-line mailing equipment for bundling and polywrapping.

The company is the now largest printer in Vermont, according to the Vermont Business Magazine’s Book of Lists for 2003-2004. The four-color web offset printing company runs three shifts around the clock, except Saturday and Sunday.

From a craft-oriented to a production-oriented industry
Fred Babinger, vice president of manufacturing for 15 years, got started in the printing business long before improved equipment and workflow processes began to change printing from a craft-driven process to a more technology-driven process. He has been in the printing industry for 36 years. His career began as a professional photographer. He is originally from Rochester, N.Y., which was dominated by printing companies where the four-color web press was a pioneer. He has seen many changes.

He said that the industry has gone from being a craft-oriented industry to a more production-oriented industry. “Printing was originally dominated by a lot of craft and skill. You could either do the job or not.” But printing large quantities became increasingly important, especially as the press technology equipment got bigger, faster, and more automated. The company is testing the Veris proofing system from Creo and evaluating options for soft proofing. The goal is to have this available in early 2004. He said that bindery is considered “the last frontier,” although that also gets more and more automated every year.

“One of the challenges in printing is to find a way to be unique,” Babinger said. “And, you have to be quick to adapt. Lane Press is unique and quick to adapt because of our customer-driven, and customer-focused mindset that goes across all departments in the plant.”

“You have to attract new customers and know what they want, and at the same time, find ways to make their business better. You have to be customer advocate,” he said. Lane Press is now completely filmless. Babinger expects that within four years the next business development will be to digitize without a plate interface.

“Lane Press is a privately-owned company, and has more feeling for the people. It does a lot for employees, has more caring for them. It’s a close little town up here, and a lot of people have been here a lot of years,” Babinger said.

The Lane Press’ longevity is attributed to being guided by corporate values that stress respect, honesty, and leading by example, according to Babinger.

“Many employees have been here a long time. Many pressmen started in their 20s, and have been here 25-40 years. Several long-time employees have been here for more than 40 years.

“We have gone through every major change in the printing industry and are still a very strong player in the publications market. We’re celebrating our 100-year anniversary. How many companies can claim this great achievement? At Lane Press, we are proud to say, we can.”

About the author: Jane Peters is a freelance writer based in Burlington, Vt. She can be reached by e-mail at .

Editor’s Note: Lane Press is located on Hinesburg Road South Burlington, Chittenden County in the northwest border of Vermont, adjacent to the city of Burlington, Vermont’s largest city. Lane Press will have events all year long to celebrate their centennial. One event is a Publishers’ Roundtable in June, which is a forum that discusses industry trends, technology, distribution, and provide networking opportunities. They will also produce a book celebrating the history of print over the past 100 years.