Over the years, I’ve met and interviewed many printers. None have been like Warren Werbitt, our choice for Printer of the Year in 2008. Werbitt is pretty much an original in this industry. I spent the better part of a day at his Montreal company in August interviewing him for our story, and I have to admit, I was pretty tired by the time I got on the plane to fly back to Toronto. Energetic doesn’t begin to describe him. The ideas and opinions fly from him at breakneck speed. Some opinions are outrageous, to be sure, some funny, but all refreshing for their audacious candidness.
 

He’s highly critical of some aspects of this industry, at one point dismissing the difficult conditions that plague printers. This is an industry of old people, he said, who are miserable because they hang out with other miserable people, and who whine because they have always whined. That’s not going to make you popular, I told him. “So what?” was his response.
 

He’s not, admittedly, for everyone. But get past the audaciousness, and you quickly strike a vein of substance, a new kind of printer, really. He understands and knows how to leverage the power of online tools and resources like YouTube. He’s brought more attention to the industry with his video, Printing’s Alive, than most industry bodies have done in years. He has Facebook and LinkedIn groups. He owns an iPod. He understands the new media, and how to use it to enhance his first love: print. He embraces marketing. He’s hired a full-time marketing director, has invested in analyzing his company and his customers, and in marketing campaigns that put his brand out there. He understands the zeitgeist and is not playing catch-up with it—and that means he understands the new print buyers.

The man is sincere about his enthusiasm for this industry. He is proud of what he does. I have never met a printer who was so vehemently vocal about the fact that printers deserve respect for what they do and they should demand it. But more than that, he thinks rising to that level of respect is totally achievable.
 

Werbitt and Remi Marcoux, founder and chairman of Transcontinental, operate from different perspectives, with opposite mindsets, approaches and personalities, but Werbitt reminds me of Marcoux because both exude the same pleasure toward their companies and their work. Marcoux could look back on several decades of success and a company that stood at the top of the printing heap when he was Printer of the Year. Werbitt is really just ramping up. He can’t yet boast about a company that dominates the industry, but he has the same twinkle in his eye when he takes a visitor through his plant that Marcoux did. Doesn’t it all start from there?