PINE to host 118th Annual Awards Gala Nov. 15
Logic Associates founders among honorees, Graphic Arts Monthly Editor is guest speaker
Warren Loomis and Nick Orem, partners who founded Logic Associates, a pioneer provider of business management software for the printing industry, will be presented the Influencer Award by Printing Industries of New England, at the trade association’s 118th Annual Awards Gala Tuesday, Nov. 15 at the Newton Marriott Hotel in Newton, Mass.

Bill Esler, editor in chief of Graphic Arts Monthly, one of the country’s leading trade magazines to serve printing and graphic communications, will be the guest speaker.
The gathering begins with the trade association’s annual business meeting at 5:30 p.m., followed by a one-hour cocktail reception at 6, and dinner at 7.

In addition to its annual Influencer Award, PINE will present its Dedication to Education Award to an association member company that has demonstrated an ongoing commitment to employee training and development over the past year. Twenty-five year association members will also be recognized. Heidelberg is the major sponsor for the evening.

Influencer Award
“It’s twice as gratifying that we can present the Influencer Award to two people whose combined efforts have had such a positive impact on our industry,” said PINE President Jim Tepper. “And it is fitting that the Influencer Award is sponsored by Heidelberg, well known for more than a century of innovation in printing technology.

Loomis and Orem founded their company in 1970 on the premise that printers needed computer applications that help speed production, keep accurate track of important financial data and identify and control cost centers within the manufacturing operation. By the time the partners sold the company in 2000, Logic Associates had more than 10,000 users in 24 countries and annual sales in excess of $18 million. The company is now part of EFI.

“Warren and Nick changed the fortunes for many printers and their companies with their print management system,” said Steve Whitman, president and owner of Whitman Communications of Lebanon, N.H. “I was fortunate to become their very first client, and the benefits their technology brought to our company were clear from the start. Hundreds of other printers have benefited as well.

“There is perhaps no one more fitting to be recognized as individuals whose influence and innovative ideas have helped our industry,” Whitman said. “Their business management software helped printers become more efficient and improve profits. It also pushed opened the door to a whole new marketplace of ideas related to computer-based tools that allowed printers to identify and manage costs in the highly customized manufacturing process that is printing.

“Today, the printing industry as a whole is much more efficient due to the numerous management information systems that are in use. I attribute that significant achievement to Warren and Nick’s early work.”

Guest speaker
Bill Esler, editor in chief of Graphic Arts Monthly magazine since October 2004, is ideally positioned to offer insight into the economic rebound of the nation’s printing industry before Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and rising energy costs caused some disruption.

Esler has more than 30 years’ experience as a journalist covering printing and graphic communications. Prior to that, he worked in multiple roles in print production including typographer, press operator and production manager.

Esler supervised Graphic Arts Monthly’s daily coverage of Print 05 held in Chicago. The sentiment from the September quadrennial international trade show was that the bringing to market of new technologies combined with printers transitioning their businesses to be “solutions providers” casts their future in a bright light. Esler will discuss these and other topics at the awards dinner.

25-year PINE members
Six companies will be honored at the Awards Gala for 25 years of continuous membership in PINE. They are Massachusetts firms Charles River Publishing in Boston, J.L. McIntosh in Cambridge, Evans and Faulkner in Watertown, Quik Stik Label/Xygraphix in Everett; and New Hampshire companies Imperial Company, Inc. in West Lebanon and Lebanon Graphics in Lebanon.